203 replies to this topic

[Waser Lave]

The only thing I can say anything about is the outside chat programs. I think it alienates people.
I've been on the chat and I'm not a big chat room fan, it's awkward and what not. But on the other side of things, if I post a little status or post in a thread to try and get to know people and be involved, I either get trolled because that appears to run rampant here, or people who have no fucking clue what they are talking about; posting without being able to backup their BS.
For example my comment on another thread here in reply to iargue.

iargue is well-known for being a polymathic expert on every subject despite knowing very little on any subject, it's best to just ignore him.

[Noitidart]

Thanks nymh for the thought out post.

A lot of people on this site, like Ladida said, speak of its past wistfully. If it was so great, then why will the decision makers not allow us to have some of the old features back that everyone loved?

I don't think it's features it's the member attitude.
Right frizz?

I think we can give gfx a shot if we have a dedicated leader. strat and nyhm are really active in that area i think.

I don't know man that's real hard. I talked a little about that with soul. Soul feels it very much.

[Galadriel]

After reading what has become of this thread since I posted I am actually somewhat excited to see the changes made, if any.

[luvsmyncis]

Okay. Seeing as I posted this in retired around 5 months ago and haven't heard anything back from the Admin (as usual)

Well, since 5 months ago, new admins have come (and gone!) and we've gotten new mods. Just because you don't know who they are doesn't mean they ain't any good.

[Romy]

You realize Argue did SO MUCH more than just pull his programs right?

Stole a bunch of programs from the program manager and ripped off the Item DB.


I just think we should move on. It's not like we can undo the things he did. We need to move past it.

[Irradium]

I just think we should move on. It's not like we can undo the things he did. We need to move past it.

I agree with you here, I believe he has had his punishment - the only problem I have iruleants is his stupidity.

[Romy]

I agree with you here, I believe he has had his punishment - the only problem I have iruleants is his stupidity.

Then we should deal with his stupidity when he acts stupid

[WharfRat]

@pikachu Frizzle nor myself have used the programs in years. His pulling of the programs is the least reason to wish for him to disappear.... We've been calling for his removal for some time. He seems to have calmed down a lot recently so I would debate action item 10 but it clearly states no debates so I suppose that's just that...

@Nymph You should read the part where Frizzle states he posted this in retired 5 months ago. You know... back before you were a mod....

Anyways, all ye retired already know my feelings on the list as I'm certain I posted them in retired previously.

[Random]

I agree with bringing back Private and Retired and wiping. I always have. The ranks don't even make any sense now. There is no actual distinction between people on the forum.

I also think we should bring back donation tags. It gives people an incentive to give money to the forum.

I also agree with banning iargue. No one (important) would be upset.

[Irradium]

The ranks don't even make any sense now. There is no actual distinction between people on the forum.

Spoiler

No particular reason for using Yung, just the prime example at the time of drawing.

Edited by Russell, 09 May 2012 - 08:51 AM.

[Bone]

Spoiler

No particular reason for using Yung, just the prime example at the time of drawing.

This would be accurate if it wasn't for reality.

[Nymh]

@pikachu Frizzle nor myself have used the programs in years. His pulling of the programs is the least reason to wish for him to disappear.... We've been calling for his removal for some time. He seems to have calmed down a lot recently so I would debate action item 10 but it clearly states no debates so I suppose that's just that...

@Nymph You should read the part where Frizzle states he posted this in retired 5 months ago. You know... back before you were a mod....

Anyways, all ye retired already know my feelings on the list as I'm certain I posted them in retired previously.

I kind of assumed that he had updated or edited it a bit before reposting it since it had been so long. Maybe I was wrong?

[Sweeney]

Nostalgia goggles, m'dear.

Partly, but not entirely. The site was more active back then, community-wise. There was more fun. There was a far greater amount of interesting things going on.
There were problems, sure. But they were engaging issues, not disheartening problems.

[Kyle]

What about placing emphasis on another game, such as Diablo III? If we encouraged the forum to get on board with the new release through a posting section and some programs, it could draw a TON of new members

[Sweeney]

What about placing emphasis on another game, such as Diablo III? If we encouraged the forum to get on board with the new release through a posting section and some programs, it could draw a TON of new members

Wouldn't work. We couldn't provide the same attraction as a dedicated site.
It's been tried before, and failed consistently.

[Adam]

Diablodex!

[Bone]

What about placing emphasis on another game, such as Diablo III? If we encouraged the forum to get on board with the new release through a posting section and some programs, it could draw a TON of new members

I don't think this would work either, but (gradually) shifting Codex's focus away from Neopets may be the only way to keep it from collapsing as badly Neopets is.

[Kyle]

Wouldn't work. We couldn't provide the same attraction as a dedicated site.
It's been tried before, and failed consistently.

With the high quality of programmers on this site, our program quality can rival anyone. Some change like this needs to be made, because \/ is correct. We're the best site for a dying game

I don't think this would work either, but (gradually) shifting Codex's focus away from Neopets may be the only way to keep it from collapsing as badly Neopets is.

Edited by Kyle, 09 May 2012 - 09:54 AM.

[Norava]

I think more discussion about non-Neopets things would be awesome, but it's kind of sad to consider employing a bot to bring us things to talk about. We should be able to rely more on our members for interesting and fresh topics. Everyone who reads this should think about how many topics they have personally created, and out of those how many encouraged intelligent discussion (and weren't just like "how do I get faster buy times in Ambrosia?!?").

Maybe if we have more real world conversations involving more people, those that do participate will learn a bit more about how to communicate civilly and hold up their own appropriate end of a conversation without being condescending or rude.

I find that whenever someone is knew, or starts up a thread pertaining something interested to them, they just get trolled, condescendingly talked to, or ignored. Who wants to engage in conversation, much less start a thread, when you know the people who are going to respond are going to be rude. Yes, it is the internet, however, I don't think that means we should just run rampant and be complete asses to each other.

Also, for you frizzle. (Slightly NSFW)

Spoiler

[Sweeney]

With the high quality of programmers on this site, our program quality can rival anyone. Some change like this needs to be made, because \/ is correct. We're the best site for a dying game

Programming for something like Diablo III is hugely different to Neopets. They wouldn't be remotely comparable.

And Neopets has been a "dying game" for half a decade. I think it's fine.

[iargue]

Ahh, one of those types.
I'm a little sensitive on the subject of my marriage, hence why I went into so much detail about it in my reply~
Thanks for the headsup

Thats why you attacked me for asking why you didn't have a green card when you were married.

I have been at this site for 8 years now and have never seen a moderator explain why he warned someone. If it wasn't for the warns forum and my extensive log I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know about warns at all. Let alone bannings.

Dan used to send me PM's when he warned me.

[ShadowLink64]

Oh boy, large topic to read.

I'll make lots of replies, but first:

I don't think this would work either, but (gradually) shifting Codex's focus away from Neopets may be the only way to keep it from collapsing as badly Neopets is.

I'm not too sure if Neopets dying is causing the recent "inactivity" that the older members like Sweeney are speaking of. There were just as many active members in 2005/2006 as now I think, but boy were the people in 05/06 ever posting. We'd consistently hit over 1000 posts per day on the forum, just from.... who knows what. Now, we barely hit 300 some days.

What do you figure it is that causes people to post like that? Pride that people have in the site? I know that's what gets me going sometimes.

[Sweeney]

Thats why you attacked me for asking why you didn't have a green card when you were married.

By now, you ought to be able differentiate between an attack and an answer.

What do you figure it is that causes people to post like that? Pride that people have in the site? I know that's what gets me going sometimes.

I think we used to have an active member base who had interesting things to say, and were interested in what other people had to say.
Nowadays, our most active topics tend to be the ones where people list a reply to the OP without having to engage in a community discussion.

[Bone]

Oh boy, large topic to read.

I'll make lots of replies, but first:



I'm not too sure if Neopets dying is causing the recent "inactivity" that the older members like Sweeney are speaking of. There were just as many active members in 2005/2006 as now I think, but boy were the people in 05/06 ever posting. We'd consistently hit over 1000 posts per day on the forum, just from.... who knows what. Now, we barely hit 300 some days.

What do you figure it is that causes people to post like that? Pride that people have in the site? I know that's what gets me going sometimes.

I'd argue that the post quality is now, on average, superior to what it was in 2006.
For example...

The restrictions on post count that some subforums now hold also might discourage people from posting (or at least skew the data, I don't know if you're counting those posts).

[ShadowLink64]

Okay. Seeing as I posted this in retired around 5 months ago and haven't heard anything back from the Admin (as usual), I thought I'd post this in general to get some consensus. Basically a thread started about changes at Neocodex and I thought of a few ideas that might go down well. Let me know what you think

1. Employ new Admins. Like Joe said, some deal with the technical side, some the "social side" of the site.

Yes. We tried that, and it failed. We're coming up with names for suitable candidates. I have some people in mind.

2. Wipe out. Wipe all ranks and start fresh. This includes mods. A select few will then choose certain members to stay as moderators and elect a new retired and private leader.

These leaders then elect a few people to join the ranks immediately. They then join through the old voting process.

Advanced stays the same and you can probably downgrade a couple of programs to keep the masses happy. People may say its favouritism, but it's plain to see go regularly provides this site with meaning. Whether it'll be programming or general discussion, these people are Codex, they deserve to be in the higher echelons of the site.

Back to the ol Priv/Retired debate.

3. Being back GFX and promote programming section more. Promote two leaders. The promote mini-mods of subsections such as general chat and NC corner or whatever it's called.

a) What will the purpose of the GFX team be?
b) Who will oversee the leaders? Why can't GFX-related activities be ran by members, like the SOTW for instance?

4. Training for moderators. God damn some of the newer ones are thick as shit. No diplomacy, bad with words/explanations and constantly arguing.

If a moderator actions something, log it. Deleted posts, closed topics, warnings, whatever. Log it and EXPLAIN to the member in question why they have chose that action.

I believe I still have a 20% warn from two years ago...come on now.

I think this is an old statement, but I definitely agree that moderator training needs to happen to build up some consistency and confidence in them.

And we used to PM, but that's something we slipped out of doing for some reason. We should be doing this. This will enforce consistency instead of posts just disappearing out of thin air with no explanation.

5. More boobs.
8. More boobs.
15. Finally, the most important point to make. More boobs.

There are clearly more female members on the site than ever before, so this is covered.

6. No internal chat systems which take posting away from the forums. I understand some shitty IRC thing is where people chat but that's offsite. Just persuade people to use the form to talk. Nothing wrong with that.

To be fair, IRC is not active enough to blame it for the lack of posts. We once blamed it as a reason for the post count declining, but I believe bigger forces are at work.

7. Rehash of the rules, just spit polish them and advertise them to ensure people know them.

They've been redone, both in a shorter and longer version. If they can't be arsed to read the shorter version, the person's a moron.

9. Try to get some RSS feeds or bots to post from other sites? This allows discussion on topics we might not know or can be bothered to post about. Imagine if we had regular posts from BBC news, Reddit, CNN and other sites to promote activity?

I'm not 100% sure of how this would work from a technical side (or if it's possible ) but its just an idea.

.. and make a subforum called "News" and just have all this shit in there? If it was all spewed into General Chat, that would be a nightmare. The technical part is doable.

10. Ban Iargue. This is not open for debate.

If he commits a bannable offense. Until then, nope.

11. Try and engage older members to participate or come back. We all miss Kim, Matt, Michie and the older yanks who don't come on here any more.

Ok, go do that.

13. Tutorials! But proper ones that aren't nepets related. Programming and GFX tutorials were wicked back in the day. I learnt a lot about photoshop and learned to programe using VB when I was 14!

The onus is on the members to make tutorials I think, but we could encourage it somehow.

14. Advertise the site more. Advertise on google, rival sites, yahoo and MSN groups, the Neopets boards and other new related communities.

Once we have a landing page, and stable content, we plan to advertise. We even have a budget for it now!