Living Symbiotically

ID:1704099
 
Oct 21 2014, 6:15 pm


BYOND is a symbiotic place. Without the staff who look after it, or the people who use it BYOND would be nothing. On our own we are nothing but together we form a community.

Like a global community we face collapse unless we have a free and open line of communication between everyone involved. Part of this is to accept the good and the bad.

Threads are just like late night talk shows, if they don't discuss your views you're welcome to change the channel but giving them the ability to be there and to be saying things some people might not like is fundamental to how a community works.

I write this not as a rally, but as a plea to the staff who operate the forums to not cut channels with differing opinions but to simply change their channel if they do not wish to partake in that discussion.

As the looming destruction of the forums shows, there is a massive gap between the opinions of the user base and the opinions of the staff. I do not think that halting communication further is going to make the problem any better. In fact halting discussion only acts to further ostracise staff and users from each other.

Hopefully this can shake some sense back into the community. I hope.

Evelyn Beatrrice Hall - 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'
Oct 21 2014, 6:23 pm
I can see both sides of this.

If someone keeps making threads that act like they have a point but are always finding a way to stab at the mods and provoke some kind of reaction, I can understand them wanting to take action against him.

Then I can see the side that says he said some things that made sense and deserved to stay to be read.

I really don't care either way, because the only parts of the forum that we really need are the Announcements, Developer Help, Design Philosophy, Bug Reports, Feature Requests, Demos & Libraries, and Tutorials & Snippets.

We won't really need Bug Reports and Feature Requests once they finally release their final stable version and close up development (and/or open-source).

Actually, we don't really need any of that, but keeping it would be nice and convenient.
Oct 21 2014, 6:29 pm
Keep in mind that "BYOND" != "BYOND Community".

BYOND is the company that develops the BYOND software. The pager, Dream Seeker, Dream Maker, Dream Daemon, BYONDexe, webclient, etc. are all made by BYOND.

The BYOND Community is entirely unnecessary for the software to exist. It's everything on byond.com other than the link to download the software, such as all of the forums, user pages, and hub pages for games, libraries, and demos.
Oct 21 2014, 6:47 pm
There is this idea that somehow BYOND censors criticism because a small handful of people keep saying it. They are not being censored-- their threads are getting locked and deleted because they are repetitive and just generate animosity that has no reason to exist. If we really censored opinions, we wouldn't tolerate the dozens of threads here ripping on BYOND or the community. Now personally, I don't really understand the purpose of these threads outside of the troll potential, because I don't understand why someone would continue to use a product/community they think sucks.

The latest post was deleted and the user banned because it was outright threat (a stupid thing to make on a public forum) towards me and/or the mods. It was also yet another attempt to say how shitty the software/community is.

At any rate, we will soon be closing the "discussion" parts of these forums because they simply degenerate into this kind of thing. It is a shame because Off-Topic (formerly "Babble") has been a part of BYOND for longer than a lot of you have been alive, but right now it is just contributing to a toxic environment that we don't have the time or inclination to deal with. To whit, right now I am trying to put together a release but was pulled aside because people kept paging me that a user was spamming and making threats on the forum, about stuff that really has nothing to do with BYOND.
Oct 21 2014, 6:51 pm
In response to Tom
Welp, I tried my best.
Oct 21 2014, 10:09 pm
well guys i guess this is good bai. we could've had nice things but you guys had to go and be retarded so now we get nothing. who knows, maybe one day when the skies are dark and the moon waxes, all little chirren and bebehs will sing that glorious BYOND song and our harmonious voices shall be acknowledged across the globe. stand with me, my BYOND brethren, one final time as we commemorate our closing journey. never forget all we've been through, all we've suffered, and all we've gained.

amen.
Oct 22 2014, 12:57 am
Good job ruining the internet, guys.
Oct 22 2014, 6:52 am
Bai BYONDOe