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Discussion in 'Site News' started by LazloPsylus, Jan 31, 2017.

  1. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2008
    Messages:
    256
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Then I suppose you should have acquired a better memory!! :|

    In all seriousness, this is an issue. Perhaps we should make the forum visible to former pro users again temporarily (or just to everyone if it's too much trouble)? That seems the most fair way of resolving this issue.
     
  2. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2009
    Messages:
    Location:
    THE BEST GOD DAMN STATE OF TEXAS
    Yay!!! The forums are back!!!

    Which is what I would say if I were excited in any way. Seriously, what the hell? I hear all of this "the site was shut down because of shit said about Ordos doing fuck all."

    Really?

    Where?

    I've stalked the Discord logs of the past few months and have seen a very small, like a handful, of this so called "band wagonning" going on. I'm yet to read anything on the forums of people of talking heavy shit about our "Lord and Savior Almighty" OrdosAlpha. When I ask a few people of "higher position", I don't get a straight answer. Instead I get this:
    Wow, so I should take your word for it? Sure, because things that don't happen in public should be accounted for as being a cunt to our Lord and Savior. So, if I ever feel annoyed or frustrated about somebody, I MUST keep that to myself, otherwise I'm insulting that person directly and just shoving my dick in their face. Good thing to note...not.

    Of course, this is invalid now as the "real" reason has been revealed as, "The community has become so toxic because you fucking cunts are childish and mean and arrogant, and whatever else. So, even though it's a small minority, you all get the punishment, as we all know. "All for one and one for all.....Unless it's staff. Because fuck you. We are God."

    So, what I want to know is what the fuck is the ACTUAL reason. Not a reason that is given to the public to quell fears, or to give everybody to something to think about. I want hear the actual fucking reason, cause it still sounds to me that this is "Oh, All these people don't appreciate us, so fuck them, it's cancelled."

    Now of course I don't feel that all the staff is so fucking bullheaded with their head's ten feet(or in some cases, meters) up their own asses to agree to shutting down a whole fucking forum to "teach a lesson" and to "prove a point," however, it happened.

    Before I go to my next point, lemme ask you, the staff this question. What was the fucking lesson to be learned?

    No, seriously.

    What was the point?

    Because all I learned is that a third of the staff are easily upset, emotional wrecks who are unqualified to run anything more stressful than a lemonade stand, and even then that's giving those involved credit because I'm being nice.

    You, the staff who just said fuck it, are fucking out of your fucking marbles if you think you taught anybody a lesson. I'll give you a rundown of what has happened.

    People who are "toxic" and "egotistical": They got the satisfaction that they could piss you off and play you like fiddles to the point that your strings broke. You let them win. Congratulations you dumb cucks.
    Newbies and people unacquainted with the site: They learned that the site can be shut down by staff with little notice, thus it is an unreliable place to post their works.
    Normal Members: Their staff shut down the forums and a good fucking majority have not the slightest fucking clue why. Stories are inconsistent between various sources. Another good job.
    Staff: Over half the staff doesn't even approve of this course of action. A number of you who approve of this, which happens to be the minority, have been speaking on behalf of the whole staff, making this seem like all of the SSRG staff wanted this, when this is simply not the case. So, along with fucking the normal members over, you're putting words in your fellow staff members' mouths in order to seem like this was an all inclusive act of the SSRG Gods.

    If this is honestly about a small number of people not appreciating you, then fuck off. No, seriously. I mean that. Should've let the site died, and see it rise up again. It's died plenty of times, and come back. SSRG is here to stay, whether your salty tired cunts want it to or not. You people run a Sonic hacking forum, not fucking NASA. Your position of staff is about as important and impressive to another person outside this community as the King of Cheese is to Antarctica.

    Hint hint: It isn't.

    Also, I've heard some of you staff wanted to quit. Then fucking quit. Who or what is making you stay? There are plenty of talented young blood here ready to take over and maybe make this place better. Ralakimus and TheStoneBanana are easily the biggest and most successful in terms of hacking and keeping their shit together. Misinko, Bakayote, and Natsumi are in the same place as well. You're not irreplaceable, just like I'm not, so stop acting like it. Just leave if it's too much. You people are pushing on 30 anyways. Is this what you people want to do as you approach mid to late Adulthood? Being stressed over a forum dedicated to hacking games about a blue hedgehog that runs fast and has multiple woodland creature friends?

    The community doesn't just need a change, the staff does as well. A big "fuck you guys" meant for a small minority and instead being directed at everybody doesn't work. The fact that this has to even be discussed is fucking retarded. You people, the staff, are supposed to be examples to follow, and instead what I've seen is this:



    You staff seem to forget. It isn't the staff that makes the forums, it's the community. I agree that the community needs to change for the better. I myself haven't always been a shining example of perfect friendliness and goodness and whatever else, however, the community needs an example to follow. Be that example or fuck off.

    As a side note, the staff is a reflection of the community. If the community is fucked, then it's on the staff. Something to think about, but I digress.

    To the next point, your rules are fucking stupid. Stupid in the sense that they're just the same rules except that they have been reworded for better....or for worse.......

    Wait, there's an actual new rule......

    "No Band wagonning."

    Wow, that isn't oddly specific or anything!

    My favorite one is about NSFW. Like holy shit, there's only been like three people of recent memory who's posted something down right NSFW.

    Polygon Jim when he was trolling TSR.
    Tongara when he was trolling....TSR I think? Can't remember.
    Ordos a week and half back posted a picture of a vagina...oh wait. Never mind, rules don't apply to staff. Silly me =V

    I don't even get why you guys put so much explanation into your rules. If the community here is stupid, newbish, childish, or immature, why make such detailed rules? If it doesn't work on little kids, why would it work here? It feels like you, the staff, want to be an authoritative regime, yet be that wacky older brother who tries to give you advice before prom night. Think Fidel Castro, but wearing festive Hawaiian shirts and looks like a frat guy.

    Anyways, I expect this post to be trashed within a few hours. So, if you catch it, congrats. If not? Oh well. Though I do a fresh ban coming up soon, so that'll be fun. Hope it did get you idiots attention.

    If you're looking for me, I'll be in the Kool Kidz Klub over on Reddit. Something Ayla and I whipped on while waiting around for the place to come back up as an alternate meetup on the off chance Ordos didn't get enough children's tears and prayers of the weak to bolster his ego.

    Bye Everybody, see y'all later.

    P.S. The Kool Kidz Klub is called SSRG_USA on Reddit. Here's a link. Have fun ;)

    https://www.reddit.com/r/SSRG_USA/

    Double P.S. If this post does get deleted and I do get banned.

    Dear Staff who are cucks,

    Eat a barrel of dicks. Choke on them as they go down your tiny throats.

    Love,
    Kevin Cole
     
  3. LazloPsylus

    LazloPsylus The Railgun Member

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2009
    Messages:
    Location:
    Academy City
    Oh darn. Another one bites the dust.

    Anyone else want to test the theory about rule enforcement? The railgun's nicely warmed up and loaded.

    Rules #0,#2, and #6 blatantly broken without care. And yes, I'm keeping the post up as an example.

    Love, Lazzie.
     
  4. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2008
    Messages:
    256
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Yeah... So I've been trying to play nice and not cause too much of a giant shitstorm since we all just came back. Still, there are actually some valid statements here included with the anger and blatant rule breaking.

    First of all, I feel the anger is deserved to some degree. As staff, we weren't very forthcoming with information. I know that many of us didn't feel it was really any of you all's business what was going on aside from the fact that we were "fixing issues with the website". This was meant as a punishment. I don't feel it was fair to punish the many for the actions of the few. I stated this much to other staff. We agreed to disagree on it (eh?? rules!!).

    I still don't think it was the right decision to take down the website. I really think we should've done what we normally do as staff and gave warnings / bans as appropriate and moved on. Instead, there were overreactions made. Logs of what exactly happened are not publically available. Honestly, it's not important for you all to see them anyway. What matters is that there was a problem, and it needed to be dealt with.

    So what was the problem? The problem was that people were ganging up and being insulting. That was the entire issue. That's why the site was taken down.

    Before I knew the entire situation, I assumed that this was a small group of the staff (obviously not me!) that had snapped. At this time, SuperEgg and I did create a subreddit. We figured that it would be a place for people to post and hang out while they were waiting for the main forums to come back up -- whenever that would be.

    It was soon after this, that I spoke with other staff (specifically StephenUK, Ordos, RHS, and Discord Admin, Xeal) and decided that this was unnecessary as, although I didn't completely agree with some of the other staff, I understood that this wasn't a temper tantrum and was simply an attempt to take a step back and take a breather. I also understood that the site would be coming back up sooner rather than later. As such, we never told the public about the subreddit.

    Sure, we shouldn't have taken down the main forums. As I've said many times, I disagree with that action. It had been done, however, and it was allowing the staff a chance to stop for a moment and decide what to do.

    It was at this point, that we made new rules. The new rules are pretty much the same other than there being more emphasis on not bandwagoning and on respect. With all that out of the way, I'd like to address a few select quotes from above (which is why I'm quoting a post above my own).

    This is all absolutely true. This was the negative result of what we did. The part that says "staff" is exactly how I feel. My discussion with StephenUK started out with a fight because I felt like words had been put in my mouth.

    The answer to this question is "yes". I love doing this. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been in this community for going on two decades.

    I agree with this statement 100% and I've said this to people so many times that I feel like a broken record. It doesn't make sense to "teach the community a lesson" or treat the community as "an unruly child that should be punished". This is how some of the staff feels. Here's a quote from an anonymous staff member:

    "This is the mentality we're trying to eradicate, so the only way to get it through to them is to punish the masses. Picking out one or two people does nothing, this needs to be a collective mentality switch, so removing the forums for the time being was the best way to get them to really think about their actions."

    It's as though some staff is wanting to literally brainwash you all.

    So to wrap this up, I just about lost my drink when I read the Fidel Castro reference. That was fucking hilarious and incredible. Thank you for that. SuperEgg is right. That subreddit is there to join if you'd like. We made it so people would have a place to congregate while the site was down, and it's still there for you to put your thoughts on if you're interested!! It's not going anywhere, so post away if you'd like =)

    https://www.reddit.com/r/SSRG_USA/

    You can think of it in the same light as the Discord and IRC channel -- another facet of SSRG that's more relaxed and less strict. It also, of course, is only one forum. Don't really see the harm in keeping it a secret since its been mentioned now!
     
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  5. LazloPsylus

    LazloPsylus The Railgun Member

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2009
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    Location:
    Academy City
    SuperEgg brought up valid points, and I'm not going to contest that he's got a right to a view. That being said, delivery is everything, and he has a habitual problem with delivery, and since we're now pushing stronger rule enforcement, the noose was tied. There's a laundry list of things to work on, and we're past the point where pointing fingers at who or what is going to help, and Ayla did well in covering things that we're definitely going to be working on. Change is going to require effort on both ends of the table, so let's get rolling on making it happen.

    ~E~: Y'know, I wanted to let other staff tell their story and really keep to myself, but Kevin's tirade is demonstrating that silence on my thoughts on the matter are not going to cut it, so let's play ball...

    You want to know why I supported this place being down? Because this place has become a festering pustule of arrogance and ego that is condemning it to an everlasting cycle of resentment and hostility that will ultimately destroy this place. It doesn't take a psych degree to see it all the time around here. New users constantly being wrung through expectations that climb ever-higher, popular users being paraded about and trumpeted as idols, and an overarching air that if you're not in the popular crowd, your work is terrible. And the worst part? We got complacent. The Staff team all started wanting the best, but over time, we've all been worn down by this monster. The monster the community created, and we're complicit in letting happen under our watch, and we were too worn down to take on.

    Why didn't I speak up about it and post a thread on it? Why didn't any of the rest of the staff? Let's be honest: How many of those did people actually pay attention to? Most likely just glanced at it and walked away, taking no real impact from it at all. And the staff, too, stumbled in keeping enforcement strong over time, being run down before we could see the greater problem of it all. So, when the final straw dropped and the response by Ordos was to bring the place down indefinitely, something happened amongst the staff. Sure, at first there was a lot of confusion and arguing, and the first couple of days were mildly tense. But then we talked. And talked some more. And looked at what we, as a community, have built here. And for a brief period, a number of the staff were dismayed by the abomination. Several of the staff were ready to just throw in the towel, which due to how some of the bonds have developed over the years between staff, led to a string of "well, if they're out, then I'm out" statements. Just off-hand, the tally for the amount of staff that would have been left had the chain reaction of resignations happened would have numbered just one admin and two staff, with a bit of fuzz-room on an admin and a staff member. I'm not going to lie, this iteration of SSRG was on the brink of being shuttered and nuked from orbit at that point, with the sole emergency physical copy being set ablaze at some point early in the situation out of frustration.

    And yet, here we are. Open again. There was plenty of discussion, a lot of soul-searching, and a couple of experiments undertaken to learn about this beast we've all birthed over these many years from different angles. We spotted a lot of places where mistakes have been made and things were or weren't done that should have been otherwise. In some ways, that analysis is still going on, with the input provided by the community. With all this information, it really hit us what has happened with the staff and with the community. The staff has been operating in a way that basically guarantees we'll burn out at some point. We don't make this place, but we are responsible for curating and steering it, and we have been operating in a way that guarantees we would fall apart, exactly as we did. With a new perspective has come newfound desire to step up and act as what we should have been, and push the community away from its own self-destruction.

    Some of the initial changes are visible. The rewrite of the rules was much-needed and called-for, and while it doesn't make drastic changes to the policies previously governing this board, it makes the rules more accessible and more able to adapt to changes that may be needed. Some old systems that failed to be beneficial have been cratered, and we're constantly talking about what to do next to push things along. We're tightening on enforcement, which should have been done a long time ago, and we're not letting the older members get passes on rule breaking like we have in the past. We're energized and ready to push this community toward being a place, not about arrogance and elitism, but about learning and pushing each other to keep pushing limits. But we can't do it without the lot of you taking this on with us. We can steer and guide to a degree, but all of you ultimately dictate what this community is, so consider this the outreach. We see the possibility for an amazing community, and we want all of you to help us make it. It's not going to be easy, but all of us need to be pushing each other to keep up the fight and make this place something to be proud of.

    There, my blocks of text on the matter. It's your move, SSRG. Are you ready to make this happen?
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2017
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  6. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2008
    Messages:
    256
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Another wall of text? That's right. No one's going to read through this shit most likely, but I'm going to say my peace anyway.

    Lazlo's right, you know. I tried to help with the egotistical cancer that was devouring this community. I created that thread offering to provide help with learning assembly. I had a handful of people take me up on it and, quite honestly, it was too much for me to do on my own. With me having started school again, I can't do it. Even so, its died off. I had maybe ten people talk to me -- many of which were decent enough that they were what I would call "intermediate" hackers.

    I've actually watched members literally drive away and scare away other members. There was a young girl here that was trying to learn how to hack. I'm not one for calling out names. I really want to in this case, but I'm going to restrain myself. It was a member. A member that I've this issue with more than once and a very old member. If I catch it again, I don't care it's IRC -- he'll be getting banned by me.

    Anyway, my story. This old member was tearing into this girl. Demanding that she do things his way and when she was asking for help doing nothing but interrupting and demanding that she give him one word answers and then telling her she was a noob and and idiot when she did answer.

    I stepped in and tried to help her. I solved her issue in one minute. It doesn't really matter, though. She told me about upset that made her. She never came back after that despite me doing my best to try and undo the damage. She was not the first I've seen this happen to with that particular individual.

    And that particular individual was not the first individual that I've seen doing this sort of thing in general.

    As for the rest of it, I have no intent on leaving the SSRG to burn. If it had gone down, there would have been those of us that would have revived it (like what always happens). This iteration may have "almost died", but that personally means very little to me. I've watched so many versions of these sites die at this point that it's not much different than dying in a video game. I just wait for the respawn or I push it to happen myself.

    I don't think staff can push a community from self-destruction. I think that their behaviour can have an effect on it, but that the thing that makes it or breaks it are the members and whether they want to frequent a community or not. As SuperEgg and I in my previous post pointed out, you can't have a community without members and staff should be catering to the members -- not the other way around. This is, of course, within reason. However, a successful community is made from staff that regularly enforce their rules and rules that don't restrict the members and make them feel stifled. The final paragraph of what Lazlo said tied together the previous one the way I wanted it to be. What I'm trying to say with this paragraph is that staff can't push a community from self-destruction.

    It takes all of us working together to do so.


    TL;DR -- since I've hit you with yet another wall of text, here's the summary. Lazlo's right about the first part. The ego needs to go, and I'm going to start banning and warning here and on IRC for it. I'm done. This version of SSRG may have almost burned, but it would've come back regardless in some form or another. It's nice that it didn't, though. Makes things easier for a lot of people. Finally, staff can't do this all themselves -- we need all the members to help us. A community is nothing without its members. And members don't want a community where they feel stifled.
     
  7. LordXernom

    LordXernom Well-Known Member Member

    Joined:
    Aug 12, 2012
    Messages:
    763
    I agree with most posts here. But I think the biggest problem with this forum is underestimation of SSRG for being good alternative for Sonic Retro. I saw on SHC 2016 posts/opinions about judges and staff, that annoys me, because staff work is underestimated by members for me. They want the best for community and they receiving shit like "staff is bad, SSRG should be destroyed etc." In SSRG we have stuff that Retro doesn't have like different tutorials, topics of hacks, ugly mug/other creative Lounge topics, bigger amount of active members in hacking topics and people are still complaining! People should learn respect SSRG more for being a thing for people who don't like Retro or want different experience. When SSRG was shut down we lost important data we could find there and other stuff. I could treat that event as a experiment to test out people's reaction about it, they will complain and wishing SSRG die or they will scream in agony "Bring Back SSRG Bitches!"? I adore staff for their patience and soul toward this community. I love members constructive/fun topics or posts here. Please, let's enjoy SSRG what it is without shutdowns, massive complains and rudeness from people X to people Y and vice versa. It's wonderful community with wonderful talents and I don't want see it burned.
     
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  8. Chaotix

    Chaotix Bad at Team Fortress 2 Member

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2014
    Messages:
    190
    Location:
    England
    Well I mean, it's good to see this back and all, but I'm sure I was the only one who didn't have a clue about what was going on since I'm not exactly the most active on IRC let alone the Discord. Again, it's great and all, I just wish for a quick summary of what the actual fuck happened.
     
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  9. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2008
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    Location:
    Portland, OR
    You weren't the only one who didn't have a clue. We purposefully kept that quiet until staff could gather their thoughts, discuss things, and take action. We didn't want to start putting reasons out there until we had all discussed our grievances and made a plan.
     
  10. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

    Joined:
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    So, the forum is back. Yay!

    I don't have any clue what the hell happenend. Before this happenend, The PC had enough and just broke. I just went one there to the forums and nothing was there, expect for an message. I was worried by that thing. But we should take all our breath, because the forum is back so that we can have fun again. I hope that the takedown doesn't happen again.

    Let's have fun again, okay? Show them that we are not stupid and dumb. Show them... that we are one strong community!
    #SSRGisawesome
     
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  11. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Portland, OR
    You are a man after my own heart, aren't you? You bring up an excellent point. At the end of the day, we're all here to have fun. That's what we're trying to do.

    We don't want to be serious. We don't want to be elitist. We don't want to be aggressive. The SSRG was created as the bleeding edge site for Sonic hacking, but it was also created as a place to have fun. Back in the day, we didn't take ourselves all that seriously. We had fun doing what we did. Sure, there was drama -- especially toward the end of the "First Generation" of the Sonic Hacking Community (2002 - 2003 time frame) -- but the drama sprang up because we were, in a way, at war with an ideaology (Sonic Cult) that was elitist rather than based in fun, laid back research.

    Take a look at Fume Cupboard Facility on Emulation Zone sometime. It's Cyan Helkaraxe's website -- the guy that made the first large scale Sonic hack and the first "beta hoax". There's not a damn thing that's serious about that website. It's just fun and silly.

    That is the SSRG. Not elitist. Not stuck up. We're here to have fun and research the assembly code in the Sonic the Hedgehog games. =)
     
  12. Ashuro

    Ashuro Anti-Cosmic Metal Of Death Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    550
    Location:
    France
    There are many people around me in France, friends and even my wife, who loved what i did with a Sonic 1 rom.
    They asked my HOW did i do this, and I talked to them about SSRG.

    All my friends were disappointed by the atmosphere here, and abandoned the idea of going to learn ASM and hacking, they said i'm insane to stay here.
    My wife is registered here, Frenzy-Frenzless. She had started a small nice rom hack with her own character (like me and Ashuro), she gave up after her first zone,
    Because she saw how I could get screwed here with Ashuro, and it completely disgusted her, to see that i was depressed and did not sleep at the contest period. She told me to leave this place, but inside me, i had hope, cause there is many good peoples here.
    I wanted to enlarge this community, make it more alive and fraternal, but elitism here was a poison.
    My wife stayed new-comer, however, she have a LOT of potential, more than me and she is an unconditional Sonic fan.

    Ayla, thank you so much.

    EDIT: i try to join SSRGUsa but i can't create my account, it say: this username already exist. :p
     
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  13. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    You are completely right. I began my hacking adventure (if I am allowed to call it like this) back in December 2014. My First Hack back then was Sonic 1 Megamix 3.0 (RIP Megamix.). I then saw more hacks, mostly from SonicRetro but also from SSRG. In 2015, I began to hack too. With ESEII. I know, stupid decision is stupid. This was the birth of my completely wierd colored hack Sonic Unlimited (I still like that name. When I hack again, I will use it.). Later, I began to work with the right things and created an 1 act demo of Sonic 1: South Island (This title boi. It makes no sense). What I am saying is that everyone can make an good hack. They just need hope. As long they don't give up, they can do anything. (Sonic CD reference.. Kind of).

    And, again...
    #SSRGisawesome