Other Forums Containment Thread

[bork]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/resetera-ownership-update.499677/page-43#post-75225273

This thread is fucking nuts. Imagine comparing real slave labour to willingly modding a forum. Some of you folks are so incredibly transparent. As I said before, always the same shit in this threads.

I was being facetious you cretin. Guys... your forum is dead...

Top of the page again?  More Jade

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[HaughtyFrank]

oh hey look whose ban is over

Yeah, I'm not reading all 42 pages, stopped at 15.

Grats to Cerium on the payout.

Hopefully the shift cuts through some of ossification in the culture.

Also random thoughts from my skimming of the first 15 pages:
1) I see that the mods here, despite my run-ins with them, are visibly mistreated by the userbase and heckled and jeered for their missteps against the userbase. The relationship between mods-users being basically antagonistic has been an issue going back to GAF, hopefully this changes.
1a) The sudden "think of the mods!" outpouring reeks of crocodile tears. You're unhappy and you want to vent, fine, but have the guts to not hide behind a "moral" cause you don't actually support at all times; this is one of the most persistent issues with this community, the leveraging of morality when it is rhetorically convenient, then the abandoning of them when it is inconvenient.
1b) Era moderation is on a volunteer basis. This is not like some non-profits where the humanitarian mission extracts uncompensated labor from volunteers with moral pressure. Each moderator can, and often did, step down at any time if it got too hot for them, and even reintegrate into the community as an unprivileged user. That they didn't choose to presumably implies they thought it was worth it.
2) The financial value of the site has been an open secret since the GAF days. If you followed Evilore's escapades, or talked to some of the old guard, you'd know multi-million dollar offers (for GAF) have been turned down for years, much to the staffs' chagrin who constantly told Evil to "get that bag". I imagine a similar dynamic played out here. The perception of 'aw shucks we're just a fan run community who do things at cost' is a fantasy users told themselves to sleep better at night. It has never been true (except maybe circa 2004); it just doesn't make sense financially.
3) The worries about 'data selling' are overblown for one simple reason: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It's been 2 years since the EU disrupted every site in the world with its GDPR requirements and Sweden is a GDPR nation. Arguably your data is safer now under Swedish ownership than under GoDaddy.

TL;DR:
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give DIRETIDE

on some level I do admire his ability to constantly talk down to everyone about everything

I've never seen a commie whose a bigger fan of capitalism than this guy

[benjipwns]

also quite frankly I think some of the examples people give of communities "fleeing the site" due to "moderator missteps" would be received quite a bit differently if posters actually learned the history of these incidents from all involved parties rather than just seeing like five surviving members of that community shouting MY COUNTRY, <RESETERA_COMMUNITY_THREAD_NAME>, YEARNS FOR FREEDOM. not all of them, but like, some of these situations are way less black-and-white than some members would have you believe

this kind of hatred is why they fled the forum in droves

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I bet this coping ban felt great for nepnep






Someone's moving dirty money!

[jorma]

what's great is that their account deletion mechanism (which the mods are heavily pushing right now) is just a way to disassociate ownership of your content from you.

As has been pointed out by EU members for years, this doesn't comply with EU laws.

Now they're owned by a company in Sweden. (Which means even U.S. posters are now legally entitled to request deletions.)

 

Not a lawyer, but i'm pretty sure that deleting the account is enough and that you can only demand deletion of your social media posts if you were underage when the posts were made

[HaughtyFrank]

True story about OP. He came to a NYC meet up a few years and didn't tell us who he really was until he was leaving. Kinda creepy tbh

I wonder if he thought this would be the most badass way to leave? "By the way, I own Resetera. Ciao!"

[Mr. Nobody]

He was barely here, man. BARELY. I can think of many situations where drama hit the site and we needed a leader to step in. HE should’ve been the guy to lead since he ran the damn site. He has roughly the same post count of a person who LURKS. I’m not saying he needed to be here 24/7 but dammit. If you own the damn thing then at least be around on a consistent basis. You know what he seems like to me? A ghost who just became a millionaire. The boogeyman just got rich. I’m salty about the whole thing and it’s not about the money.

He's not even really wrong but

I almost wish I had an account so I could post the gif of 50 driving off laughing

[Nintex]

It's logical to think moderators should be paid.. it's.. "work", to maintain something making someone else money.

Thing is.. people want to volunteer.. the bigger the forum, the more volunteers you need.. but.. then the "modship" is seen as even more desirable.

And the catch 22 being.. none of this is enough money to really make paying moderators worth it for a business. If it's generating $500k in income a year but takes 40 mods to operate it.. how much do you have to pay them then? As soon as you start paying that many people, you have other costs to incur too.. you are suddenly a medium sized business.

Pragmatically, these sites can make someone a bunch of money.. but can't operate as a normal business. It is what it is.

 


Slavery is necessary it is what it is

[marrec]

He was barely here, man. BARELY. I can think of many situations where drama hit the site and we needed a leader to step in. HE should’ve been the guy to lead since he ran the damn site. He has roughly the same post count of a person who LURKS. I’m not saying he needed to be here 24/7 but dammit. If you own the damn thing then at least be around on a consistent basis. You know what he seems like to me? A ghost who just became a millionaire. The boogeyman just got rich. I’m salty about the whole thing and it’s not about the money.

He's not even really wrong but

Tyler made himself a minor internet celebrity and lost everything for it, Cerium is a smarter person than Tyler ever was.

[ZombieSupaStar]

Good thing I only post on somethingawful, discords, and the bire nowadays!

Who will even take in REfugees when the inevitable shit hits the fan?

 

[benjipwns]

Heh. Kinda funny, huh? We’ve seen threads were the OP says something really embarrassing then runs away from the comment section. Cerium? He was barely here to begin with. Dropped a bomb of a OP. Disappeared with 4.5 million in thin air. People got tons of questions and concerns. Where is he? Nowhere to be seen.

He was up late finalizing a lot of this. He, like many people I’m told, require sleep from time to time

[benjipwns]

what if they will sell the forum to somebody in a couple years who won't care about keeping this forum civil and safe

about that

[benjipwns]

Surprised there was no way to make this a co-op with the "managers" and mods.

Do they have $4.5 million?

[marrec]

Surprised there was no way to make this a co-op with the "managers" and mods.

Do they have $4.5 million?

One sec I know someone who's just come into a large sum of money

[Nintex]

To make the cucking complete Cerium should buy NeoGAF for $100k. 


and then the james Fund will buy Moba

[benjipwns]

Might as well ask you too. But were there ever talks with Cerium about going back to the older system where multiple administrators owned a part of the shares alongside Cerium?

What I don't get is how we went from a system where there were multiple community members that owned a part of the site, to a single owner, and that single owner then sells the site with the reason it became too much being to sole owner.

It just feels like there are steps missing here, and a big one is if there were talks with the admins to see if they could buy in. For Cerium to take the burden of being the sole owner, and for the site to stay in the hands of the community. Right now it seems, Cerium bought out the other shareholders, work became too much, sold the place. But why weren't the present admins given the chance to buy in in that case?

more than lol at the idea that the staff could buy the site is buying the idea that Cerium was doing any work

[Vertigo]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/msn-how-to-play-metroid-dread-on-pc.500232/

Whilst the mods and admins are distracted elsewhere. A cheeky so and so posts a thread like this.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I wonder what morrigan got promised

[Tuckers Law]

Riotous is a bitch-made slit for actually taking that place seriously and not even once calling out Hecht for their history of doxxing.

[Nintex]

lmao resetera is now basically a full page crypto ad for me 

Riotous is a bitch-made slit for actually taking that place seriously and not even once calling out Hecht for their history of doxxing.

I gave him advice how to deal with his difficult client project manager and he turned on me anyways. He can enjoy corpo resetland and a Discord where no one responds 

[benjipwns]

It's weird that there weren't bylaws established in the LLC that required the other owners' shares be offered to the community first

[marrec]

(Image removed from quote.)

I wonder what morrigan got promised

You know Morrigan does this shit for free and will always do so because they've tied their identity so tightly to whatever ideal of ERA they've created in their mind.

That's the plus side when you run a website in which 50% have personality disorders.

[benjipwns]

But you can work behind the scenes and still have some kind of visible presence. I can’t tell you nothing about the guy. Not what games he like. Nothing. Not even something simple. I’ve been on Era since day one and I’ve met some cool people here and I can EASILY name several people and what kinda games and movies they like or whatever. I’m just saying that visibility matters. Interacting matters. Having a good time with others matters. Jumping in during a shitstorm and making peace matters.

You are not entitled to know anything about him.

Do not speak about Isamu

[Tuckers Law]

Plus she’s got that church-zealot complex going on where disagreements with her are heresy and must be accordingly punished.

[Shuri]

Great 'moderation" on those MOBA network forums.. 

https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/forum/off-topic/the-sjw-su-fandom-why-social-justice-warriors-are-awful-people-36545
https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/forum/off-topic/sjw-cancer-strikes-again-overwatch-tracer-pose-removed-for-being-quot-overly-seuxal-quot-38975

most of them seem basically dead too.

[benjipwns]

The mistake was allowing the forum to be owned by one person in the first place, should have not happened and I'm actually surprised we let it happen so easily.

What were you going to do about it?

Especially when nobody told you it was happening.

[Propagandhim]

Yeah his favorite Final Fantasy is Brave Exodus and beer Steal Reserve.   

[Cauliflower Of Love]

When the reality of a safe space also being a public forum run by a capitalist sets in:

[benjipwns]

Pffft who reads those, I just ignore them and will then claim it's not my fault

This happened non-ironically lol

You sure still have a lot pent up huh. Good thing you're not a mod anymore.

:iceburn

[ZombieSupaStar]

Cerium: itwasmeaustin.gif

RE user base: shockedpikachu.bmp

[Transhuman]

Is somethingawful any good? Not that i'm willing to spend $10

[benjipwns]

Since it's come up a lot, I just wanted to mention that we did discuss this with MOBA Network and they were emphatic that they are not in the user data business and never will be. They're not going to sell your data. Nothing is going to change about how your data is handled and protected.

It would probably be helpful if you could outline how MOBA is going to achieve the revenue goals it mentions in the press release given the moderators and admins seem to be under the impression nothing will change.

Because that's literally impossible.

The staff is so unprepared for this.

[benjipwns]

"Transparency" really means different things to different people huh.
Transparency as it was promised is basically what you get with the warning/ban banners telling you why a user got banned and for how long, which didn't exist on the old site before that (and isn't something I've ever even seen on any forum before). It has nothing to do with how the site operates financially or logistically behind the scenes and I don't know how people deluded themselves into thinking the two things were related.

SomethingAwful has had a public ban log for nearly 2 decades and it lists the mod action with comment, requesting moderator and approving admin.

And SA is pretty famous for this. A site I admin adopted a version of it after learning about it and thinking it was a good idea. (We also followed my ideological proclivities and barely banned though.)

Its been brought up a lot that we could use the something awful "leper colony" feature here.

Its wild to me how hard it is to figure out why a poster got banned if I don't actually see the offending post. I will see "dude21" is now banned when I see a post of his in a different thread. So I wonder what dude21 did, and I check every post of his on the first page of his "posts by this user" section, none of them are the offending post, and I give up.
Than I google "dude21 reset era ban" and I can often find the answer, with a direct link to the offending post, on an extremely vile toxic third party website. I shouldn't be having to go to those places to figure out why a poster I'm familiar with got banned.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Imagine the data breach that's bound to happen when they transfer ownership of data.

oops!

[Nintex]

Yeah they just bought user data, clicks and backlinks for $4.5 million.

They don't give a fuck about ResetEra it's just an ad farm in the shady world of advertisement. 

They will probably trick some boomer corporation into advertising to a 'young and diverse' audience for god knows how many Riotous salaries a month.

[ZombieSupaStar]

Is somethingawful any good? Not that i'm willing to spend $10

I like it, as a pc gamer they were better than RE (not a hard feat), but I don’t venture out further than that, they swung more left in the last few years but not batshit like RE and GAF were getting but the old days of slinging slurs etc are long gone.

They ousted low tax after yet another domestic violence story broke so now it’s kind like a spicier, and chill version of RE without quite as much echo chamber. Imo of course .

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Asian Era left because of rampant xenophobia

Imagine not knowing you're phobias apart because they sound sort of a like 

[benjipwns]

Hopefully things dont change too much. Like others said, assurances dont mean much in corporate buyouts. But at the same time, but the changes also wont be immediate. And worst case scenario with everything taking a turn for the worse... well, this community pulled a coup once before. I have zero doubts that it would be able to do it again.

So watch out MOBA.

[benjipwns]

BoyAJ made a thread like this in 2017 before his ban titled

Resetera revenue should go back to the community and gaming charity causes

tell me you read the bire without telling me you read the bire

[ZombieSupaStar]

Hopefully things dont change too much. Like others said, assurances dont mean much in corporate buyouts. But at the same time, but the changes also wont be immediate. And worst case scenario with everything taking a turn for the worse... well, this community pulled a coup once before. I have zero doubts that it would be able to do it again.

So watch out MOBA.

The community that doesn’t know how to wipe their ass, or shower, or gets ptsd over having to leave the house.


Yeah I don’t see that happening again.

[Propagandhim]

BoyAJ made a thread like this in 2017 before his ban titled

Resetera revenue should go back to the community and gaming charity causes

tell me you read the bire without telling me you read the bire

We appreciate everyone's input into this matter. All of your suggestions have been read and will be taken into consideration in any future direction this board may take. Thanks again!

 

[Yulwei]

Is somethingawful any good? Not that i'm willing to spend $10

It depends on which part of the site you post. The politics forums are an even bigger insane asylum than resetera. The new admin has fostered a community of unmedicated leftists, one of whom just got hemmed up for shooting someone.



The gaming forum? Pretty good for the most part, when the loonies from the politics forums don't shit a thread up.

[Lonewulfeus]

Muirec about to start organizing the discords as we speak

[benjipwns]

It sucks that the profits of the community's labor have not and will not be returned to the community in one form or another. The most enticing aspect of ResetEra when it began was that it was by the community, for the community. I don't necessarily believe it was ever the intent of Cerium or other early staff to deviate from that idea, but it has become the reality regardless. Who's to say when the change actually happened.

Was it step by step as Emily, Nibel, Shinobi, SweetNicole, ZhugeEX, and all of the original admins departed? Was it when Cerium grew overwhelmed and stepped down as General Manager? Was it from the start, as the structure of ownership simply never allowed for delivering the promise of a truly community-led platform? It certainly had to have come before Cerium decided to sell ResetEra for millions of dollars to a company that, as best, will treat the forum as an island it farms for revenue.

I can only speak for myself on this, but I'm not happy with this new status quo. I want to give my energy to platforms run by people who are invested and who care about that platform. And given the revelations stemming from the sale, I'm of the opinion that ResetEra hasn't been that for a long time. I genuinely adore the volunteer staff that continues to make ResetEra what it is, and as such I don't plan to leave. But I want a better option again. I want a forum run by the people who use it and who put its profits back into the community.

our intrepid games journalist who never publishes articles will get right on this I assume

[benjipwns]

Cerium was involved in most every crisis that ResetEra dealt with in meaningful ways trying to find solutions forward. You can scream into the void all you want, but it's just that: screaming into the void. Anyone who has ever worked with Cerium will tell you otherwise.

keep believing

[Mediocre Lager]

I'm curious, when they say they want the money funnelled back into the community, what do they actually mean? Is this the gift basket thing again?

[benjipwns]

I'm curious, when they say they want the money funnelled back into the community, what do they actually mean? Is this the gift basket thing again?

Seriously, read this thread from the founding, there were lots of ideas expressed, mainly donating to charities or giving away Steam keys but also pie-in-the-sky ideas about setting up game development studios for marginalized children: https://www.resetera.com/threads/resetera-revenue-should-go-back-to-the-community-and-gaming-charity-causes.826/

But a lot of people now simply mean they want to get paid for making posts "content". Especially the OT makers.

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

I am just here to appreciate the fact that EviLore EviLore could have gotten this money (or more) years ago yet chose not to- to keep GAF what it was/is. What a legend!
On the other hand resetera people seem to have gotten rich by kinda usurping what he built, or at least that's how it seems to me a little.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/resetera-sold-to-m-o-b-a-network-for-usd-4-55-million.1621017/#post-264807929

That is certainly one way to think about this.

[nobody of note]

The thread seems to have now reached the point of mocking people for talking about a shadowy mod cabal that acts in secret as ludicrous, while also pushing Cerium as a constant force for good in the shadows and how very dare you feel entitled to know about any of this at any point:

It is presumptuous of you to believe that has not happened already and to believe that you have the right to know what causes he does or does not donate to.

So there's no secret staff operations except for all the good stuff done in private fuck you for asking

[HaughtyFrank]

He was barely here, man. BARELY. I can think of many situations where drama hit the site and we needed a leader to step in. HE should’ve been the guy to lead since he ran the damn site. He has roughly the same post count of a person who LURKS. I’m not saying he needed to be here 24/7 but dammit. If you own the damn thing then at least be around on a consistent basis. You know what he seems like to me? A ghost who just became a millionaire. The boogeyman just got rich. I’m salty about the whole thing and it’s not about the money.

He's not even really wrong but

I almost wish I had an account so I could post the gif of 50 driving off laughing

Heh. Kinda funny, huh? We’ve seen threads were the OP says something really embarrassing then runs away from the comment section. Cerium? He was barely here to begin with. Dropped a bomb of a OP. Disappeared with 4.5 million in thin air. People got tons of questions and concerns. Where is he? Nowhere to be seen.

He was up late finalizing a lot of this. He, like many people I’m told, require sleep from time to time

Please have some pity on the guy who just cashed 4.5 million. He stayed up late 

[Yulwei]

I am just here to appreciate the fact that EviLore EviLore could have gotten this money (or more) years ago yet chose not to- to keep GAF what it was/is. What a legend!
On the other hand resetera people seem to have gotten rich by kinda usurping what he built, or at least that's how it seems to me a little.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/resetera-sold-to-m-o-b-a-network-for-usd-4-55-million.1621017/#post-264807929

That is certainly one way to think about this.

imagine the size of the pit in lore's stomach after reading these headlines

 

[benjipwns]

I do begrudge him for getting 4.5 mill out of the deal despite essentially not being public facing at all and refusing to give any of that money back to causes the community believe in in any way lol

It is presumptuous of you to believe that has not happened already and to believe that you have the right to know what causes he does or does not donate to.

Now we got people defending a millionaire. Well no longer defending the owner now they're defending the corporation that owns this forum.

Why does the amount of money someone has bother you? Do we need to be hostile against all people with money?

"millionaires should not exist have their actions questioned by the proles" - the new ResetERA.com, brought to you by M.O.B.A. Network AB

[Nintex]

Where is hobbes to manage this incident.

[benjipwns]

I would genuinely love to read a book about y'all's original aspirations and efforts -- the trials and tribulations that went into the launch and success of ResetEra. I don't doubt that I would deeply empathize and find it difficult to disagree with every step of the process that's led to this point.

[Raist]

Benji always misses the good shit

where is Benji!!!!!!

Leave him alone, he's busy finalizing the last bits of paperwork for the sale of a certain forum to some random swedish company.


edit: welp I guess he's all done then.

[bork]

Good thing I only post on somethingawful, discords, and the bire nowadays!

Who will even take in REfugees when the inevitable shit hits the fan?

 

https://forum.xboxera.com/
https://famiboards.com/
https://installbaseforum.com/
https://metacouncil.com/
https://slaent.com/
https://forum.waypoint.vice.com/

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https://neogaf.com

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[Boredfrom]

One moderator actually quit:

Pau said:
Yes, we had a heads up, a few days ago in my case.

I stepped down because I no longer felt comfortable volunteering given that the new owner is a publicly traded company with a clear profit motive.

I would have considered staying on if moderation was paid or there was some sort of compensation structure from MOBA Network, but no other moderator (at least in the discussions I was part of) wanted that.

And in all honestly, I never put in as much work as most of the staff. (So I'm not surprised Quinton didn't notice that I stepped down. )

Give this woman a medal.

[Yulwei]

I would genuinely love to read a book about y'all's original aspirations and efforts -- the trials and tribulations that went into the launch and success of ResetEra. I don't doubt that I would deeply empathize and find it difficult to disagree with every step of the process that's led to this point.

he wants the blueprint on how to get e-activists to babysit a forum (for free) while he collects data and shops it around to companies 

[benjipwns]

This board was rife with talk against internships, for minimum wage hikes, against corporate and individualistic greed. The chips are down now, mods and users were essentially working for free to build value for one individual, who will not return that to either the users, the mods, or any of the charities this board directs users to all the time. When it was time to put his money where his mouth was, the boss chose to take the money and run. And the folks left behind now have to rationalize why it's perfectly ok for all of this to have happened exactly the way it did.

For the Era admins to really bang on that "community community community" drum for years it's quite telling the OP in this thread announcing the sale did not even mention the amount it sold for, and that people have to find that out outside of the site. I'm also on the camp that mods deserve to get paid considering the money being thrown around in this place but if mods don't want to help themselves there's no way to help in turn.

Regardless of mod sentiment it is impossible for me personally to reconcile "community community community" when the sole owner of the site cashes checks for hundreds of thousands and then bails for $4.5 mill. At least when I consume my blatantly consumerist bullshit (of which there is a lot) there's no feeling of duplicity quite this blatant, and boy howdy that's saying a lot. I wish you all the best in this new chapter but it is no longer for me.

[joeboy101]

BoyAJ made a thread like this in 2017 before his ban titled

Resetera revenue should go back to the community and gaming charity causes

The last post of that thread is *cheff kiss* a perfect representation of this forum.

Huh. Curious what that was.

We appreciate everyone's input into this matter. All of your suggestions have been read and will be taken into consideration in any future direction this board may take. Thanks again!

Rowlf
User requested ban
Banned