A long message for you.

[Loki]

Hello Newgrounders.

Some of you probably wont understand the goal of this thread, but hell, I truly hope you'll take time to read it. No I'm not going to make a TL;DR version of this so don't even bother trying to find it in the last lines.

A lot of people here are new to the Forums. This thread is for you. I don't care for how long you've been on Newgrounds; congratulations if you visited Newgrounds for the first in 1999 or in 1923, but I don't care. When you first arrived on Newgrounds, posted on the BBS or made a new thread, you probably got judged, flamed, etc. Some people can't take it and simply never come back to the BBS after posting for the first time, preferring to move back rather than entering what could look at first sight like a giant cesspool of crap. I can understand them... but if they had joined a little while back, they probably would have stayed on the BBS and perhaps become nice regulars. When I first joined the BBS I was like most of you. Ignorant, easily influenced, etc. But I changed a lot since then and I'd like to help other people change a little bit by opening your eyes on some subjects.

Now this isn't a thread about "07 USERS SUCK LOL" but rather a thread where I'd like to point out some little problems that could easily be fixed... and ask a few questions to the newer NG Members at the same time. Hopefully this thread can help us getting a better BBS, a better community, like it used to be... when the only flame wars and spam wars were happening when Quikfox was drunk too much and when Wade would delete someone's account.

So there we go... Let me point out the major issues that are causing the BBS to suck... according to me. I remember Evark made a thread a little while back about WHY the BBS sucks lately... and how it was the fault of the people complaining and not doing anything to help if the NG Forums are the way they are in 2008. It's not the fault of the 2008 users... even though some people are just plain stupid and you can't do anything about it... I blame the NG Members for making the General Section a huge cesspool by showing a bad example to the New users. When the first thing you see on the BBS is a collection of horrible threads, what do you think your first thread will be...? Chances are it won't be great. It always depends on the person, his age... etc... but chances are people arriving on the BBS just see a cesspool of crap and decide to add more crap into it. Let's see...

Racism on the BBS

Why? Why do a LOT of people on Newgrounds have a totally racist and hateful attitude when posting on the BBS? Everyday I see people posting crap about Spanish people, Black people, French, Arabs, etc. Do you actually believe it's a cool thing to do? Is it like... what the cool kids do in high school nowadays? Insult non-white people? Hate on a group of people because they're different from you? I'm not going going to go further into this... but I'd like to know WHY do you bring racism on the BBS. "It's a joke! It's a meme!" answers are not valid. Racism isn't something you make fun of. If you do a joke about Black people, if you spit on the French, if you openly hate Arabs, it's racism... on any level. Posting 4chan memes about Black people is just as bad as putting a KKK dress on. I also noticed every time there's a thread talking about Black people, or a Photoshop thread involving a Black person, racist comments and images are going to be all around the topic.
You guys need to stop that. There's, I believe, a reason why Tom censored the "N" word... he somewhat knew the new generation of Newgrounds users would abuse the term. And people would abuse it en masse if he didn't censor it. I also see people complaining about this censorship. Well I say hell with them. The NG BBS would go down in my esteem if people would be able to type racist terms and get away with it. Especially when most of you aren't racist IRL.

Stop with the Racist jokes and such things, it's not funny. It's immature.

Immaturity on the BBS

The Newgrounds BBS in a whole is a community. Imagine this community was real. There would be younger members and older members. In a normal society, the younger members would show some respect to the older members, they wouldn't act like total idiots all the time and make fool of themselves in front of adults. In a normal society I believe these younger people... also known as 12, 13, 14, etc, these teenagers would probably try to act maturely in front of adults. Well imagine the BBS is real. Would YOU act like a total dipshit, create completely pointless threads every day and fuel the disease that is the spam and the lack of maturity in the Newgrounds BBS General Section? I say maturity but I guess maturity isn't all; I don't even think our Administrators or Moderators are always mature themselves ;) There's a difference in between being mature and having fun of a childish way... and being a completely immature person. Myself I'm not always mature.
But when you end up creating completely pointless threads every day... in an obvious attempt to grab people's attention... your maturity shows a lot. Let's take a few examples on the General front page.
Example one.
Example two.
Example three.
Example four.
...and so on. Those are just some randomly picked threads that looked like pointless crap I'd never post in... obviously created to try and get some attention. Those threads are a plague on the BBS.
I remember they always existed... but never that many. Sometimes I can just lurk for an hour or two before finding a thread that would be worth posting in... or that I wouldn't get banned for posting in...
Terrible parody threads, horrible photoshop threads, stupid stories no one care about, obvious trolls and alts... why even bother posting in those threads?
The only solution I would see in having a decrease of that kind of threads is if EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE stops posting in these useless and pointless threads. Ignore them, like I do, like other users around here do. Ignore those threads, don't give their makers the attention they starve for. Don't fuel these threads, don't fuel the disease. It's not the Moderators' job either to tell you not to post in these threads... If there's no Moderator online, it doesn't mean you can go post in spam threads... It's your job to keep yourself from fueling crap on the BBS General section. It's your job to restrain from making horrible posts, racist comments, spam, etc.

There's a ton of lost cases... where you can't really educate the person... well just ignore those fools. Don't let them tarnish the BBS I love and the BBS you love. Because you are thirteen doesn't mean you have to act like you're eight. The BBS isn't your High School either. If you enjoy acting like a dumbass with your friends, well act like a dumbass with your friends in real life, on AIM, or wherever you want, but keep it out of the BBS. The BBS would be cleaner without threads like "i h8 my mum" or "my teacher expelled me from class!!11!11" where all you're going to see is perhaps a made-up story followed by countless flame and spam.

I know a ton of amazing users who grew tired of the pathological morony that grew on the BBS during the last months, years... The Moderators are trying to make this a nicer place, so are the Administrators... but you're not helping at all when you're acting like you are. Countless of great Regulars and Moderators don't visit the BBS anymore because they are tired of teenagers acting like total kids and total dicks around the General, the Politics... and actually on the whole BBS except maybe the Programing section... ;)

So grow up, stop acting like a kid and act like if you were in a community... because that's how I see the BBS. An awesome community with amazing people and handsome regulars. Don't tarnish my BBS.

Oh and I'm not trying to boost my ego, I'm just tired of kids. Grow up!

[masterkoopa1015]

Long message, indeed.
I appaud you for writing this much.

[Loki]

I'm opened to discussion. Characters remaining: 1 for the loss.

And hopefully you won't think you're original and come spam this thread. Hopefully someone will be watching it :)

Also another thing I forgot to talk about that I just remembered...

ORIGINALITY.

The lack of originality present on the BBS is astounding. Stop copying 4chan and start creating stuff. Don't always count on other people to look like an interesting person; it doesn't work.

[Achilles2]

To be completely honest, you're taking the Internet WAY too seriously.

You can never teach an idiot. You'd do well to remember that during your Internet tenure.

[ZerotheRelentless]

This man speaks truth.

[4Doctodragon]

Immaturity and racism is a part of humor in pop culture. I probably wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for that.

[subpar]

Wait... there are still intelligent people here?

Maybe I'll start posting regularly again.

[Kuro]

The power is yours!

[ngmastah]

I agree with every word you say.

[Fro]

I get your point to this. And it should be bumped many times for people to read it.

[megaman12345]

This room is full of people who care.

Also i am not new. Not in the least. If you cant handle random pointless threads you should leave Newgrounds due to the fact that hundreds of them are made daily.

[ZerotheRelentless]

At 4/23/08 11:37 PM, MadMax wrote: BUT, yeah, memes. No no.

Memes? WHARE!? *points at sig*

[ReciprocalAnalogy]

At 4/23/08 11:34 PM, Achilles2 wrote: To be completely honest, you're taking the Internet WAY too seriously.

But is this not a community, an interaction between people? Is it genuine to say action should be unlimited where it can be so, or is it an excuse?

[jordan777]

i agree,.......... they should screen pointless shit.

[Dei-Sama]

I am sorry but you can change nothing with words here it seems.

[Loki]

At 4/23/08 11:38 PM, Grubby wrote: So everything else that you do is to boost your ego?

No it's not. Except maybe when I blam/protect to get a higher Voting Power... It boosts an ego when your vote counts for more than someone else's :P

At 4/23/08 11:38 PM, megaman12345 wrote: This room is full of people who care.

Then why post?

Also i am not new. Not in the least. If you cant handle random pointless threads you should leave Newgrounds due to the fact that hundreds of them are made daily.

Oh I can handle them. I can handle them if they are funny, original and RARE. I can't handle them if they are excessive, not funny, unoriginal and actual total spam... like 99% of them. But you stated a problem: hundreds of them are made daily. Now that you stated it, why not help and get rid of that problem? You actually enjoy being flooded with crap?

[Fro]

At 4/23/08 11:38 PM, megaman12345 wrote: This room is full of people who care.

Also i am not new. Not in the least. If you cant handle random pointless threads you should leave Newgrounds due to the fact that hundreds of them are made daily.

Your telling a user like FBI here to leave newgrounds? You don't deserve to be here.

[KerfuffleMach2]

I agree with most of what you say. (Occasional racist jokes are ok by me.)

I would like to applaud you for taking the time to make this topic. These issues must bother you a lot for you to put that much time and effort into reversing the process.

[megaman12345]

At 4/23/08 11:40 PM, ReciprocalAnalogy wrote:

At 4/23/08 11:34 PM, Achilles2 wrote: To be completely honest, you're taking the Internet WAY too seriously.

But is this not a community, an interaction between people? Is it genuine to say action should be unlimited where it can be so, or is it an excuse?

Newgrounds will never be a place for intelligent conversation. It is the opposite. If you do not like that just go to another forum when you feel like acting smart and come here when you feel like acting like a dumb fuck.

[Achilles2]

At 4/23/08 11:43 PM, megaman12345 wrote: Newgrounds will never be a place for intelligent conversation. It is the opposite. If you do not like that just go to another forum when you feel like acting smart and come here when you feel like acting like a dumb fuck.

That is exactly what I do. That's why I don't have a jacked up post count.

[Fro]

At 4/23/08 11:43 PM, megaman12345 wrote:

At 4/23/08 11:40 PM, ReciprocalAnalogy wrote:

At 4/23/08 11:34 PM, Achilles2 wrote: To be completely honest, you're taking the Internet WAY too seriously.

But is this not a community, an interaction between people? Is it genuine to say action should be unlimited where it can be so, or is it an excuse?

Newgrounds will never be a place for intelligent conversation. It is the opposite. If you do not like that just go to another forum when you feel like acting smart and come here when you feel like acting like a dumb fuck.

I have many serious conversations. It only gets the rep for not being a serious place because of users like you. Yes we all have fun here and joke around, but that clearly isn't what he is talking about.

[gumOnShoe]

I'm with you on a lot of that FBI, but I don't see how standing a soap box is going to help the situation, though hopefully a few users read this and go, he yeah that makes sense.

Racism, well they grew up with it and think its cool I guess.

Immaturity, thats really subjective and based on point of view. I've seen that and I notice it, but I also recognize that every 13 - 16 year old isn't going to be able to be mature all the time.

And yeah, lots of good people are gone now. :'(

I can just list them and for the first time, I feel like I'm actually losing connection with this place. Its not that I hate the spam, or the users or find it a waste of time or want to leave like many other times before, its just like you said. I stare at the general forum for a while, don't see anything of intrest and then maybe post in one thread before leaving.

[Orange-Jews]

since when are internet forums such serious fucking business?

Newgrounds at that.

[Extremewookie]

Is it even possible to fix the BBS? Large social communities are bound to receive many immature users. This is evident in large online games like Halo 3 or World of Warcraft. While there are some good people out there in these games, the fact is that they are a rare commodity. Immaturity is just too easy to come by, possibly because of the liberating feeling one gets from abandoning his name for a fake screen name.

I hate to be a pessimist, I really do, but it just seems impossibly to regulate such a large community. For example, look at Runescape. As you probably already know, it's a free online game (that offers extremely cheap membership benefits, so immature children can convince their parents to get it for them more easily) which attracts thousands upon thousands of people. Jagex attempts to regulate the maturity of its users with censors. Tom Fulp has tried a similar strategy with the n-word, but is it really effective? The answer, simply, is no. People always find ways around the censor, and even with the word censored, will it truly discourage the behavior?

Of course not. Users will continue to harbor racists feelings, and though they may be unable to express them through the n-word, they will find another means. If this activity is to be stopped, the only plausible way would be to ban relentlessly until people got the message.

Immaturity is similar, except it incarnates itself in many other forms than a racial slur or two. I think we all, having used the BBS, know what it's about, so I won't elaborate further. Once again, unless the mods stepped up their bans to unprecedented (and highly controvertible) levels, it seems unlikely that the site will experience a decline in it.

[megaman12345]

At 4/23/08 11:41 PM, FBIpolux wrote:

At 4/23/08 11:38 PM, Grubby wrote: So everything else that you do is to boost your ego?

No it's not. Except maybe when I blam/protect to get a higher Voting Power... It boosts an ego when your vote counts for more than someone else's :P

At 4/23/08 11:38 PM, megaman12345 wrote: This room is full of people who care.

Then why post?

Also i am not new. Not in the least. If you cant handle random pointless threads you should leave Newgrounds due to the fact that hundreds of them are made daily.

Oh I can handle them. I can handle them if they are funny, original and RARE. I can't handle them if they are excessive, not funny, unoriginal and actual total spam... like 99% of them. But you stated a problem: hundreds of them are made daily. Now that you stated it, why not help and get rid of that problem? You actually enjoy being flooded with crap?

No. I am not going to try and stop something that can never be stopped. When i see a bull shit thread and its spam or something like that i play along and not bitch because it is stupid or ignore it. Stop being such a baby over an internet forum.

[4Doctodragon]

At 4/23/08 11:45 PM, Orange-Jews wrote: since when are internet forums such serious fucking business?

Newgrounds at that.

Agreed, these guys just need to chill the fuck out and enjoy themselves.

[killerjeff]

This long message is pointless, the 07 users will always have flaws.
Alhough you may be right.

[Pruane2Forever]

Go outside.

[zaxnort]

At 4/23/08 11:30 PM, FBIpolux wrote: Racism on the BBS

like this?

[Fro]

At 4/23/08 11:49 PM, Pruane2Forever wrote: Go outside.

Every time I see this it makes me facepalm. Are you not inside on a computer right now? Hypocrite.