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The plan, moving forward.


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@'Dr.House':

> Chill out, it was just a damn joke.
> Interesting how you only see my "negative" posts, and the positive ones where either I help either I just say something to encourage someone, you ignore them, or maybe even those you think are negative.
>
> It's not the community that is wrong, or the situation of the eclipse atm, it's You, you never knew how to do "jackshit" but to make apology threads and say everything will get better when obviously everything got worse.
>
> You can ban me if you want, it's your choice, let's see how well you start something new by doing that, it's not like many people care about me here anyway, but I'm sure they won't stand beside your ass when you're talking big about positive changes while you make negative moves.

I don't mean to take sides here, but I have noticed a trend wherein House seems to catch flak from you Link. I'm not sure if he did something to piss you off or you just don't like his sarcastic/cynical attitude (which you're within your right to hate him for it but acting on it's another matter) - but he has been around a long time.

Also, House- whilst I don't particularly know you well and I don't believe we've ever had a conversation- I would state for the record that I don't believe Link is actually the problem with Eclipse and that I'd miss your awkward persona in the long run.

I also don't think the fact we're focused on 2D RPGs to be a problem either and I don't think they're completely "out of fashion" as Jc believes- Serene's Forest focus on one series of 2D single-player RPG (rom hacking to make their own stories and games) and they're doing just fine- RPGMaker is doing VERY well. People like me love 2D orthographic games, we love ORPGs. I'll stick around until I get banned, which may be whenever since I tend to speak my mind. - I still remember my first ban, Robin banned me for "being a dick." in the newbie section when I was sarcastically pointing out something that was obvious to me but not to the person asking the question.

The problems in this community are thus;

We lack cohesion- There are certain people with powers that divide the community, whether it be how they act or their reputations - BenjO is a great example of how a moderator should be- he interacts but not too much, he doesn't wantonly ban people, he's relaxed with the rules and is more than happy to say "hey, you shouldn't do that" than give you a 24 hour shoutbox mute.

We lack direction- this website's direction has always been improving the Eclipse engine. We've all worked to some degree to further the goal of making fun orpgs by contributing art, music, answers, code and build relationships with other people here- we had a common goal which was moving forward with Eclipse. When Amish introduced his child-friendly bollocks and ultimate ban-hammer for people he didn't like, he polarised the community with a great canyon of a divide in which you either agreed to remove the freedom of speech/the freedom to be yourself or you abhorred the decision but dealt with it because you liked it here once.

I don't honestly believe BitRocket is the way to go- Sekaru went off and made IndieRising which was supposed to be a community for indiedevelopers - he gets maybe 3 visitors a day, 5 if he goes around posting on /r/indiegames.
Spork went and made his own engine/community, Powder Engine- which was beginning to attract attention until he got a job where his contract forbade him from working on the engine (and now his forum is dead.)

The main problem was as I said, Amish's divide- suddenly you had a mass wave of people leaving/being banned/leaving because someone else was banned and that seriously left some scar tissue wherein the relationships amongst people in the community were soured and lost. I used to enjoy General Awesome's inflammatory antics. It was entertaining. We all knew he was the way he was and we developed a skin to be able to handle his comments and turn them back on himself. We had many people like that once and they contributed to making it so every thread was good for a laugh and laughter is the best way to get someone involved in something. Humour, Comedy, we need more of that in the community again- but we can't have it right now because no one's willing to try since it results in people suddenly disappearing without being able to say goodbye.

So what would I do to fix the community?

First of all- you're on the right track. Moderators and moderation needs to MODERATED. The moderators don't need to be a happy-friends club wherein you take someone's word for it because you like them, that's no better than a real world fascist oligarchy.

1) Moderators have to ease up on bans/mutes, etc. They need to check their feelings at the door when handling business and not their personal interpretations get in the way of doing what they're supposed to do, which is moderating the discussion within the community.

2) Less rules, definitely less strict rules.- We used to have a warning points system wherein you'd get 25 points, then get a 24 hour ban at 100 points and the points reset at the end of the month (I think it was a month) and that was a great system. Also the average age of this community isn't 8, 9 or 10, it's mid-20s. We don't need rules to protect children from seeing swear words- what the hell do you think they're seeing on youtube or hearing at school? They see/hear MUCH worse than most anything we could say when we use simple words like fuck, shit, piss, cunt, etc. Kids also like 3D more than 2D, in general- like snider said, 3D has entered the realm of possibility for young teens and why would they come make a 2d ORPG when their friends would probably laugh them out of the room for doing it- there's a generation gap wherein kids are less interested in developing 2D orthographic games. They'd rather do some 2d bitrunner style game in unity.
I understand the need for rules regarding discussing religion IN A NEGATIVE WAY in the shoutbox or trying to start an inflammatory discussion about it- however making a POSITIVE COMMENT like, "I have mad respect for Taoists." and getting banned for it is actually retarded and only in an SJW PC-tard world does it make sense.

3) More development orientation - we need to see a return to making 2D ORPGs, a return to our roots - the best way to do this would be to form an Eclipse Team and make an official Eclipse Game. Make a game and ask the best members of the community to contribute a bit to it. Then release it as an engine. There are plenty of people who would be willing to contribute a little, or even a lot to a community driven goal. I think Link is actually able to do this and could be one of the few Eclipsians left that could.

4) Get rid of the god awful banner above the shoutbox. I haven't seen it for some time since I adblocked it, but it really sucks. It feels like clutter and having to scroll down all the time is annoying. (I'm part of the smaller resolution group of website users.)

5) Unban everyone when the official Eclipse ORPG and engine are released. Yeah, everyone, it's crazy enough to work. Even the complete assholes. If there was a mass unban- word would spread and you'd see hundreds of people return, they'd all give it a go and try the new engine, if you even get half of those people invested back in the community again and rebuilding relationships with others who return/the ones that are left- that's a GOOD thing. Most of them are probably grown up enough to not be the complete assholes they were when they were younger. How often do you get to be unbanned from a permaban? There ya go, make it a one off- rebranding/relaunch event for the community.

6) Stop being so uptight- you (Link) need to get a thicker skin/better patience with people. You take a lot of things that are said negatively about you as an insult or someone talking about you behind your back- use what they say as criticism. If someone says you're quick to ban people, then give yourself a daily quota that you can't exceed, like 2 or 3, pass the person off to someone else and tell them to use their judgement. (Assuming your team is comprised of BenjOs at this point and not Agora's who would do it just to make themselves look good because they think that's what you want.)

7) Power. Seriously, stop modding people. Stop making people Admin. If someone asks for Admin/Moderator (Put them on a secret blacklist as a power monger) or already had Admin/Moderator before you took over- revoke it. Moderators should be on a 3 monthly rota of voting (Admins could be on 6 months)- you can choose the people to put in the voting pool or you can open it up to public suggestion that's up to you. The number one motivator that prevents politicians from abusing their powers is re-election. If you fuck up and piss too many people off by going against the community, you're not getting re-elected. Let's make this a democracy instead of a fascist regime (not intentionally run like that, but that's how it's worked itself out.) You're never going to have a whole moderator team comprised of chill moderators like BenjO who know what a joke is and when a joke is being made so you need to have the voting to ensure that the people who are observed by the users (who see all that they do) can make a collective decision on whether or not they deserve to be a moderator/admin.

Those are my ideas for now, I used to have a lot more but I haven't been around in a while.
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You're saying Link ain't the problem, but Link is the one who gave the power to those you mentioned to be the problem and still letting them have the power.
Also, I'm not suggesting him to f*ck off, I suggest to change his way of thinking, for sure it ain't easy to own Eclipse and make it work, but at least we should be free.

Free in the sense of chill the heck out, my post got deleted without a warning and without any PM of why it was deleted like I asked so many times in the past.
My message was: "what is facebook and what is a youtube, never heard of them", it was a joke, obviously, the guy posted to follow him on facebook and youtube.

Now here is the problem, a Moderator decided that the guy will take that as an insult, and that's just plain stupid, why moderators are allowed to decide for people, maybe the guy was about to respond with a "ha ha" or with another joke.

Let the people decide for themselves if what anyone posts is an insult or not, except the obvious posts that are agressive and counts as an insult.
Also, let the OP decide if someone's post doesn't really contribute, since there could be many off topic posts either by the OP either by other users, by asking a mod to edit the post and leaving instead a message like this:

"Removed - at request of the OP"
or
"Removed - since it was breaking the rule X and Y, please read the Rules again here, and refrain in the future from breaking them"
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@'Dr.House':

> You're saying Link ain't the problem, but Link is the one who gave the power to those you mentioned to be the problem and still letting them have the power.
> Also, I'm not suggesting him to f*ck off, I suggest to change his way of thinking, for sure it ain't easy to own Eclipse and make it work, but at least we should be free.
>
> Free in the sense of chill the heck out, my post got deleted without a warning and without any PM of why it was deleted like I asked so many times in the past.
> My message was: "what is facebook and what is a youtube, never heard of them", it was a joke, obviously, the guy posted to follow him on facebook and youtube.
>
> Now here is the problem, a Moderator decided that the guy will take that as an insult, and that's just plain stupid, why moderators are allowed to decide for people, maybe the guy was about to respond with a "ha ha" or with another joke.
>
> Let the people decide for themselves if what anyone posts is an insult or not, except the obvious posts that are agressive and counts as an insult.
> Also, let the OP decide if someone's post doesn't really contribute, since there could be many off topic posts either by the OP either by other users, by asking a mod to edit the post and leaving instead a message like this:
>
> "Removed - at request of the OP"
> or
> "Removed - since it was breaking the rule X and Y, please read the Rules again here, and refrain in the future from breaking them"

Well, if Link is expressly saying that's okay to the Moderators then he's part of the problem with Eclipse- however, Agora doesn't have a sense of humour, so it may be that Agora is seeing your stuff and removing it pre-emptively.

I agree completely with you, our liberty here is in a very small box. We'll probably both get banned for these posts when Agora gets on later, lol.
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Can I just say in my defense House gave no actual criticism in hist post? Lol, am I the only one missing that? I'll also state this like the first direct jab I've ever taken at house. House is a very repulsive member and I can say personally from pms of members, he/she driven like 3 people away from the site every month simple because of how much of a douche bag he/she is in the chat responding to them.

I don't have a personal grudge, house has in fact done many things he/she could have been banned for. Also if House actually read the original post he/she would know I literally asked for everyone's suggestions, yet House being the glorious helpful member still decided  look past that and post nothing helpful.

I'll also say this one last thing, the admins and mods here are doing things according to the rules. Things have been going very smooth lately, but how can I side with someone whose publicly taking jabs at an admin each chance they get instead of keeping the situation between myself, that admin and the one who has the complaint?

If I sided with a member each time they cried out abuse then a good portion of the team would be gone. Agora's a great admin, and I stick by him and any other staff AS LONG AS ITS WITHIN THE RULES, that being said I'm deeply looking into your situation to make sure this is not an instance of power abuse, but only the proof provided will be able to clear that up. I'll also be sure that all other current staff have an insight so that you know it's not coming from one person (the final verdict)

House, if you really want me to change my way of thinking that makes no sense. You're not going to change how I think, but you can CERTAINLY give me different things to think about, if that makes sense. 

Thanks Eclipse.
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@'SkywardRiver':

> @'Link':
>
> > Things have been going very smooth lately
>
> What.
>
> As far as advice to give if I cared for Eclipse anymore, I would try God's suggestions (the member's) minus the remarks about Agora as Agora is bae.
>
> Anywho, toodles.

You know for someone who doesn't care about this place, you sure do come on here to comment a lot. You obviously care.
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@'SkywardRiver':

> All for the lolz while I actually do stuff.

To be honest and no intention of being rude at all, you come on here and give your opinions about the website (mostly ones which are negative) and each post you state you do not care about Eclipse. Most of the posts made by you are about something you dislike about the current state of Eclipse and you declare you will be leaving yet you come back to add comments on current situations. This shows me that deep down you care; however, at the same time you complaining about how Eclipse is at the moment is hypocritical to say the least because you're making this place worse by being so negative instead of trying to help the community. You contributed by giving out your engine and people actually used it. It allowed people to do something. Now you've pulled it and now there is nothing. You have partly contributed to Eclipses demise. Yet here you are coming back (after saying you're leaving this community) to add comments on ongoing situations.

TL;DR: You care in some way and since you do, why not try to contribute to the community like you have before to bring this place somewhat back? Ultimately it's your decision and I appreciate everything you've done sincerely, as I really do appreciate this place as it's given me a lot of joy over the years of utilizing what this place brought us.
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@'Irij':

> @'SkywardRiver':
>
> > All for the lolz while I actually do stuff.
>
> To be honest and no intention of being rude at all, you come on here and give your opinions about the website (mostly ones which are negative) and each post you state you do not care about Eclipse. Most of the posts made by you are about something you dislike about the current state of Eclipse and you declare you will be leaving yet you come back to add comments on current situations. This shows me that deep down you care; however, at the same time you complaining about how Eclipse is at the moment is hypocritical  to say the least because you're making this place worse by being so negative instead of trying to help the community. You contributed by giving out your engine and people actually used it. It allowed people to do something. Now you've pulled it and now there is nothing. You have partly contributed to Eclipses demise. Yet here you are coming back (after saying you're leaving this community) to add comments on ongoing situations.
>
> TL;DR: You care in some way and since you do, why not try to contribute to the community like you have before to bring this place somewhat back? Ultimately it's your decision and I appreciate everything you've done sincerely, as I really do appreciate this place as it's given me a lot of joy over the years of utilizing what this place brought us.

He does care just like everyone who is still around at this point, But him pulling his engine doesn't make him responsible for Eclipse's demise, The fact that we haven't had an official engine in some time is what killed eclipse. Just because he actually made a nice engine doesn't mean the burden of supporting this site should be on his shoulders, that's like saying you killed eclipse because you haven't made an engine.  The reason he may seem negative is the fact that he has done more to support this site than almost anyone, He made an engine and released it for free. His thanks is to be blamed for the downfall of eclipse by people who have not contributed a thing to eclipse. This site was based on an engine that was written in a language that has been outdated for a decade, that is why it is dying. There has been talk of a new engine since before I joined and nothing ever came of it.
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@'or3o':

> @'Irij':
>
> > @'SkywardRiver':
> >
> > > All for the lolz while I actually do stuff.
> >
> > To be honest and no intention of being rude at all, you come on here and give your opinions about the website (mostly ones which are negative) and each post you state you do not care about Eclipse. Most of the posts made by you are about something you dislike about the current state of Eclipse and you declare you will be leaving yet you come back to add comments on current situations. This shows me that deep down you care; however, at the same time you complaining about how Eclipse is at the moment is hypocritical  to say the least because you're making this place worse by being so negative instead of trying to help the community. You contributed by giving out your engine and people actually used it. It allowed people to do something. Now you've pulled it and now there is nothing. You have partly contributed to Eclipses demise. Yet here you are coming back (after saying you're leaving this community) to add comments on ongoing situations.
> >
> > TL;DR: You care in some way and since you do, why not try to contribute to the community like you have before to bring this place somewhat back? Ultimately it's your decision and I appreciate everything you've done sincerely, as I really do appreciate this place as it's given me a lot of joy over the years of utilizing what this place brought us.
>
> He does care just like everyone who is still around at this point, But him pulling his engine doesn't make him responsible for Eclipse's demise, The fact that we haven't had an official engine in some time is what killed eclipse. Just because he actually made a nice engine doesn't mean the burden of supporting this site should be on his shoulders, that's like saying you killed eclipse because you haven't made an engine.  The reason he may seem negative is the fact that he has done more to support this site than almost anyone, He made an engine and released it for free. His thanks is to be blamed for the downfall of eclipse by people who have not contributed a thing to eclipse. This site was based on an engine that was written in a language that has been outdated for a decade, that is why it is dying. There has been talk of a new engine since before I joined and nothing ever came of it.

You said it! 100% agree.
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Bad decisions are what killed Eclipse. Lots of them.

The lack of an engine contributes to the stagnation of the community which is actually a cumulative effect alongside many other problems a few of which I touched upon in the other post, but it's not solely the reason that's going to fix everything- if the underlying problems of continual bad decisions doesn't get fixed soon it's going to the point where even those of us who still care (to some degree) are going to give up on it.

You could argue that Marsh sold the website because he felt it was stagnating due to the lack of an engine and thus was the catalyst that began the death knells of Eclipse.
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@'God':

> Bad decisions are what killed Eclipse. Lots of them.
>
> The lack of an engine contributes to the stagnation of the community which is actually a cumulative effect alongside many other problems a few of which I touched upon in the other post, but it's not solely the reason that's going to fix everything- if the underlying problems of continual bad decisions doesn't get fixed soon it's going to the point where even those of us who still care (to some degree) are going to give up on it.
>
> You could argue that Marsh sold the website because he felt it was stagnating due to the lack of an engine and thus was the catalyst that began the death knells of Eclipse.

I'd argue that when he sold it, it wasn't much more alive than now. Sure, there may have been more people around but even those numbers don't compare to what they were in the past.
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Couldn't agree more. 100%

A lot of people don't know this, but the site was rolling downhill for the longest time. That's something I'd expect the veterans to be able to point out. The constant down fall of the site is no one's fault, it's simply people have moved on due to the site not being able to give them anything or help them move further. Also, bad decisions.
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@'God':

> In a roundabout way that's what I meant with my comment about Marsh selling the website off. He saw it happening and wasn't able to come up with a way to stop it.

Possible, but from what I gathered at the time there were major factors outside of the site that contributed to him wanting/needing to sell it.
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The site was still pretty popular but definitely not the size it was back in the day, we were in the top 100,000 websites in the world at one point according to alexa. I knew the site was declining it was mostly due to the fact that I was growing up and had full times jobs and college etc. I could no longer spend all day building Eclipse and advertising. I definitely knew we needed a new engine and it wasnt going to happen without a lot of work which I could not provide at the time. Though the reason I sold it was that I had no money left not even for food. I was behind on my college payments by a month or two and could not graduate without paying it off. All my credit cards where maxed out, student loans maxed out, had already borrowed from my family. They had already shut off my school account I was borrowing other accounts to login and attending classes my teacher was letting it slide. I sold the site so that I could pay off my remaining college fees and move to Quebec to try to find a job. As for the job that came after I sold Eclipse so it had nothing to do with it. Fun fact! I am still 20k+ in debt of student loans and some taxes, but I have payed off all my credit cards without bankruptcy!

It is something I regret a bit but thats how life works, I am even busier then before arguably so I am not sure I would have been a better owner. Amish had some big ideas and more importantly the money to build a new engine and make things happen. Hindsight is 20/20.

There is more to it but that is the 30 second verison.
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@'Marsh':

> The site was still pretty popular but definitely not the size it was back in the day, we were in the top 100,000 websites in the world at one point according to alexa. I knew the site was declining it was mostly due to the fact that I was growing up and had full times jobs and college etc. I could no longer spend all day building Eclipse and advertising. I definitely knew we needed a new engine and it wasnt going to happen without a lot of work which I could not provide at the time. Though the reason I sold it was that I had no money left not even for food. I was behind on my college payments by a month or two and could not graduate without paying it off. All my credit cards where maxed out, student loans maxed out, had already borrowed from my family. They had already shut off my school account I was borrowing other accounts to login and attending classes my teacher was letting it slide. I sold the site so that I could pay off my remaining college fees and move to Quebec to try to find a job. As for the job that came after I sold Eclipse so it had nothing to do with it. Fun fact! I am still 20k+ in debt of student loans and some taxes, but I have payed off all my credit cards without bankruptcy!
>
> It is something I regret a bit but thats how life works, I am even busier then before arguably so I am not sure I would have been a better owner. Amish had some big ideas and more importantly the money to build a new engine and make things happen. Hindsight is 20/20.
>
> There is more to it but that is the 30 second verison.

Perhaps you thought I was blaming you- I wasn't. The site fell on hard times, you needed money- the problem is that Amish had money and no brains and made the situation much worse.
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@'Marsh':

> The site was still pretty popular but definitely not the size it was back in the day, we were in the top 100,000 websites in the world at one point according to alexa. I knew the site was declining it was mostly due to the fact that I was growing up and had full times jobs and college etc. I could no longer spend all day building Eclipse and advertising. I definitely knew we needed a new engine and it wasnt going to happen without a lot of work which I could not provide at the time. Though the reason I sold it was that I had no money left not even for food. I was behind on my college payments by a month or two and could not graduate without paying it off. All my credit cards where maxed out, student loans maxed out, had already borrowed from my family.  They had already shut off my school account I was borrowing other accounts to login and attending classes my teacher was letting it slide. I sold the site so that I could pay off my remaining college fees and move to Quebec to try to find a job. As for the job that came after I sold Eclipse so it had nothing to do with it. Fun fact! I am still 20k+ in debt of student loans and some taxes, but I have payed off all my credit cards without bankruptcy!
>
> It is something I regret a bit but thats how life works, I am even busier then before arguably so I am not sure I would have been a better owner. Amish had some big ideas and more importantly the money to build a new engine and make things happen. Hindsight is 20/20.
>
> There is more to it but that is the 30 second verison.

Damn, right as I was considering bankruptcy as an option… you have motivated me, sir. Haha, let's be real here though, site owner or not - you're still Marsh. Glad to hear you're bouncing back, wasn't life so much easier when were able to play with these engines?
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