Why can't people just behave?

[indescribability]

Seriously. It peeves me something awful that Skip forwarned everybody about the consequences to follow if people kept acting like jackasses. Then a few of them wanted to post in the one thread he said to stay the fuck out of.

Now some of you are going to say, "Well he could've locked it. He wanted us to post in there." To you I say, "Get real." All he asked was that we make descriptive titles for our threads, and half this place damn near would've rioted if this were real life. I mean has he not let us damn near get away with murder in RT for the most part? That is-was-, hands down, the most relaxed forum on this site. We could bad mouth christians. We could bad mouth jews. We could say vegetarianism was lame and stupid if you want.

Now we are without an offtopic forum, for the most part. You want to bad mouth anybody? Too bad because when you go into a particular forum and start degrading what the forum is about, you're probably going to try to log on the next day to find out you're no longer welcome here.

I'd like to remain positive that RT will be back in a few weeks, but I hope this serves as a reminder to many that you don't have to agree with the rules. You have to follow them because you agreed to when you signed up. Period. End of story. It said, "Accept terms and conditions" and we clicked it.

Feel free to discuss. . .

[hippychickmommy]

I honestly don't understand what's going on right now...is this all because of thread titles? Is that why RT is closed?

[indian~summer]

i don't think theres really a reason to discuss this, i agree with you completely
i just am having a hard time remembering if i did something to add to it :confused:
i certainly hope not, we all acted really immature the last couple of days

[indescribability]

I honestly don't understand what's going on right now...is this all because of thread titles? Is that why RT is closed?
Not over thread titles necessarily. It was over peoples reactions to the change. They wanted to push their luck and test Skips patience. Then he made that sticky that is in RT and a few people posted in it. Pretty much he's tired of letting people in RT do what they want and getting nothing when he makes a request here or there.

Honestly, as much time as I spent in RT, I'm not sure it's a bad thing it's gone. I'd like to think that a good amount of the traffic that used to hit RT will come here instead, but I do plan on holding everybody to the site guidelines as well. Which obviously may deter a few people from posting.

[hippychickmommy]

Well I don't mind hanging out in here one bit. I feel bad that I haven't done more posting in this forum. I (obviously) hang out in RT for the most part and tend to forget about the other forums.

[stinkfoot]

I think two things killed RT
1: General disrespect for Skip by a handful of posters and
2: The rest of us tolerating the bullshit and giving attention to those who violated.
Self- discipline seems lacking... I can fully understand the urge to speak up and rationalize my own transgressions imagining that my self-serving excuses will somehow be taken as an apology but when the webmaster gives a warning as Skip did then the only choice was not to continue questioning the moderation and to liken the administration as fascism. The few may have killed RT but we all were party to the demise because we gave the attention-whores the audience they so craved. We posted in offending threads and just added fuel to the fire. No one was innocent.

[Oz!]

*isn't sure if he can post here or not... tries anyway*

As an outsider it's been bloody amazing (in a not-so-good-way) watching RT self-destruct this week .......

Human nature i guess... tell a million people that global warming will destroy the world and they'll jump in their SUV's and drive to work while spraying aerosol cans like they are going outa fashion....... put a big red button with gigantic "this button will destroy the world - do not press" sign on it in the middle of the street, and they'll be tripping over themselves to see who presses it first

Skip showed them the button (hell, he painted the damn thing neon and surrounded it in barbed wire practically) ..... it still got pushed.

This is Skip's home, his rules... most who don't like rules that are laid out simply move on... but there are always a few who feel the need to bite the hand that feeds them... maybe they were ignored by their parents as kids or some such shit.... or maybe they just forgot that while they might be teh biggest kid in the sandpit, there is nothing stopping the owner of the sandpit filling it in

Seen it all happen before with the UK forums (although they were only downgraded and moved) ....... and it's taken about nine months for UK to re-emerge to anything like it once was.

I don't pretend to know how Skip works when a forum is deleted, but i do know that UK Forums have only grown again because a few dedicated folks were prepared to rebuild it practically from scratch..... and I'm guessing if yer wanna see RT again that's wot yer gonna have to do.... luckily you have provision to do that on Hip... personal/private forums and such... you just need the people to spend the time actually doing it..... and doing it by the rules this time of course.

I don't want to bad-mouth anyone, but a lot of what i saw in the old RT was a lot of people who were very willing to slag off the moderators... with very little (if any) inclination to actually moderate themselves .... we make the forums and the communities that come from interactions on those forums... we only have moderators to deal with the problems regular posters can't deal with themselves...... and that includes posters who can't abide by a few simples (and imo common-sense) rules

Good luck if RT returns tho' ..... i rarely posted there, but it was usually worth a read ;)

[indian~summer]

very well said :)


especially....
... maybe they were ignored by their parents as kids or some such shit.... i was totally ignored by my parents, classic "daddy wasn't there"
i'm gonna use that as my excuse :D

[indescribability]

Oz, of course you're welcome here. My home is open to everybody. Great post btw.

[ihmurria]

Because behaving is no fun.
Damned if i know, I didn't feel like instigating the wrath of anyone capable of shutting down RT. I hope it's temporary, but we'll see. I just sort of have a hard time figuring out where the boundaries are between ok and no-ok behaviour when it comes to being on topic, thread titles, etc... but, live and learn, right?

[indescribability]

The thread titles thing was pretty self explanatory as are most of the guidelines. If your thread was asking for advice it should be "I need advice on _______" instead of Just "I need advice". Etc.

Staying on topic isn't a HUGE deal when it came to random thoughts. Threads were usually allowed to head off topic as most of them did. Intentionally derailing threads was what was really frowned upon.

The bigger issue was the complete lack of respect for administrators and moderators as stinkfoot mentioned. Skip drew a line and people wanted to be cute and cross it. Those of us who didn't cross it didn't stand against it either.

[madcrappie]

I honestly don't understand what's going on right now...is this all because of thread titles? Is that why RT is closed?no! thats not it at all.

people continuously felt the need to attack mods, the administrator and site policies, and the admin was tired of it. end of story.

and because that forum was the "random thoughts" forum, most people fell it was in free reign to personally attack and criticize the site.

[TheGanjaKing]

and this all just happened the last couple days? I was here on and off for the last week or so, but not very much, and must have missed all of it

[madcrappie]

TCF, you pretty much got some of the whole deal, but there were also hipsupporters acting like jackasses, even one going so far as creating a picture of hitler with the moniker "hipforums" within the picture of his signature........ and planning on boycotting the site, etc.

theres alot more to it all, but it was needed for RT to disappear........ may be awhile, maybe forever. just depends on how people deal with this........ pure bull seems to be getting alot of overflow and attacks on the site and the admin yet, so it only proves how retarded people are.

[TheGanjaKing]

TCF, you pretty much got some of the whole deal, but there were also hipsupporters acting like jackasses, even one going so far as creating a picture of hitler with the moniker "hipforums" within the picture of his signature........ and planning on boycotting the site, etc.




see I missed all this...... thats what I get for having to go to work I guess. oh well, its better off this way.

[indescribability]

TCF, you pretty much got some of the whole deal, but there were also hipsupporters acting like jackasses, even one going so far as creating a picture of hitler with the moniker "hipforums" within the picture of his signature........ and planning on boycotting the site, etc.

theres alot more to it all, but it was needed for RT to disappear........ may be awhile, maybe forever. just depends on how people deal with this........ pure bull seems to be getting alot of overflow and attacks on the site and the admin yet, so it only proves how retarded people are.
Yeah, I had seen that signature. Kinda fucked up. The boycotting thing I thought was a joke since masturbation was mentioned in the body. Unless that is not the incident you were speaking of.

I kind of agree that it was needed. As much as I stayed primarily in RT for my entire HF existance, shit was getting out of control. I think this'll help bring more attention to personal forums and also to topic based forums. Who knows, if it stays gone long enough people may lose the desire to have it back.

[honeyhannah]

I'm personally glad RT is gone... though I didn't know that until, just right now. As for the thread title thing... I'm assuming I followed that rule... but for me that really is a tough one... I don't put too much thought into my thread titles... they just come to my head and I type them... but I don't really post in RT anyway, and skip said he wasn't worrying about personal forums.

And about the banning thing... well even though I do recall knowing that rule, I completely forgot about it... to me it felt natural to ask people on the fora... but anyway that will not be a problem anymore.

I agree that it would probably be better to have this sort of thing in a personal forum. I don't know... I just don't really care very much. In my opinion Random Thoughts fell apart as soon as I started posting on hipforums again, if not before. *shrugs*

[stinkfoot]

If it should come back the content could be purged... clean slate so to speak.

I'm wondering about the value of (eventually) making it a semi-private forum that all can read but only some can post...? Also some ideas as to how the burden of administrating can be taken off Skip's shoulders so his time not be wasted babysitting. The concept of being able to discuss "whatever" is more than a little compelling but the measure of freedom is too easily abused without a measure of constraint over who is allowed to post... along the lines of "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile".

All my thoughts of how the forum might be reinstated sidesteps the fact that none of us stepped in and said "enough" when Skip and the mods were being disrespected... no one cared enough about RT to even stop posting in the offending threads- we just kept feeding the fucking trolls. They got their much deserved administrative sayonaras and because we didn't take the warning seriously enough we lost our (well, Skip's) forum. Personally I'd very much like to see RT return but that's the limits to my entitlements here... I can "want" all I like. I cannot bring myself to ask Skip after he has been more than patient with us. The entire HF should be alerted to the self destruction of RT lest anyone else not take the rules very seriously. A sticky with a link to the site rules might go well in each forum with the subject "it happened to them, it can happen to you".

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Thomas Jefferson

[indescribability]

I really think RT needed a couple dedicated moderators. I mean yeah there are supermods that could take care of it, but most of them also had other forums they were directly responsible for as well as 100's of other forums to try to keep an eye on. And with the amount of traffic that came through Random Thoughts one dedicated moderator would clearly not be enough.

I agree with you whole heartedly stinkfoot that none of us have any right to ask Skip to bring back RT for a long, long time.

[madcrappie]

no one really wanted to tackle RT because it was a tough one to handle.

[indescribability]

no one really wanted to tackle RT because it was a tough one to handle.
I did. I offered my services to Skip the other day. Understandably he declined the offer, but thanked me nonetheless.

[mynameiskc]

i shoulda been a mod for rt. but it's gone. oh well. now people will pay more attention to all the long ignored personal forums. you can get away with a lot in personal forums, after all.

[indescribability]

i shoulda been a mod for rt. but it's gone. oh well. now people will pay more attention to all the long ignored personal forums. you can get away with a lot in personal forums, after all.
Yeah, this place has already gotten much more traffic since RT shut down. I plan on whoring it out something decent. I'm obviously not going to bitch about titles and such since Skip isn't worried about personal forums, but bickering and flaming and shit I will wind up deleting.

[mynameiskc]

naturally. that shit is boring anyway.

[indescribability]

naturally. that shit is boring anyway.
You should offer to go down on all the mods and admin in return for making you and I mods of RT ;)

[mynameiskc]

lol. i can see that happening. i'm barely tolerated as it is.

[indescribability]

lol. i can see that happening. i'm barely tolerated as it is.
Yeah me too. But I'll still ask from time to time. I'll leave the oral sex part to you though, for obvious reasons.

[mynameiskc]

i am really good. but some might need a man for it.

[Kinky Ramona]

Hmmm...I'm still trying to figure out if I contributed much to the death (or coma) of RT. I certainly hope not, I never tried to push my luck too hard. Ah well...I still have most everyone from there on my buddy list and we've got a few RT personal forums still. I'll survive...somehow...someway. *brave tear* Hehe.

[!empty.glass!]

you didnt

[crummyrummy]

I think its funny that cell thirteen is still located in the random thoughts personal forums.

[honeyhannah]

How did that happen and what does that mean?

Oddly enough, I found myself missing random thoughts today, 'cause I wanted to post something and had nowhere to post it.

[crummyrummy]

it just means the forum hasnt been deleted yet.

[Tree-Hugger]

I miss RT, that was my home away from home. :(

[indescribability]

RT probably wont be deleted for a while. I'm guessing Skip has just removed the ability to post in it until he figures out what he ultimately wants to do with it.