[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ][spoiler]timeless classic[/spoiler][/url] Before we begin I would like to provide a warning of sorts. Like all good things, I may have in fact typed this while sleep-deprived and intoxicated, so it may come on as a bit strong or incoherent (hopefully both). Frankly I hope this is drowned out by all the recruitment threads and no one ends up reading or replying. Commencing, today is October 15th, 2014. For you today has probably been yet another dreary hump day, but for me today marks the 7th year I have participated in this site. It has become a sad tradition for users to celebrate their Bnet Birthdays, and in the past I have seized every opportunity to debase such threads. So, in the spirit of tradition, I am posting a Bungie.net Birthday thread with the hopes you will return my past scorn in kind. You should read every word with a healthy contempt and skepticism. If my posts resounds with you, I implore you to take the time to leave a disparaging remark. For those of you who can't be asked to read this entire post, it deals with the forum structure and community that we experience now compared to when I join. Unlike threads my other threads, there is no bait-and-switch or clever deception of subject matter. [url=http://halo.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=65768634&postRepeater1-p=1]Schadenfreude[/url] may be a forceful way of emphasizing problems, but I feel honest communication will prevent whatever point I am trying to make from being confused. If you're insane enough to read my posts, you may have noticed that recently I have toned down my volume of criticism. Up until recently I had convinced myself that this was simply my own patience to wait and see how the new forum system would function. After reflecting inwards I can say it feels more like defeat. In the past, when I posted criticisms of members' behaviours or site features, it was with always with the hope of betterment. Truthfully I enjoyed this community, and sought through it an absurd ideal to which few could live up to. With the current state of the community, I do not truthfully feel I can contribute. Almost all the features I argued against have been implemented in the recent site updates. It's clear that I've chosen the losing side in the debate. Rather than linger on in generalities, I would like to address specific problems I have with the site. I have composed a short list of protests which I feel are modest but ultimately necessary. I would love your feedback, and should mention that I have ordered the list in increasing importance (meaning we're starting with the trivial). [b]8. Moderation[/b] It may come as a shock to you, but honestly I consider my least-important commentary to be the current state of forum moderation. While it is difficult to gauge moderation on this site due to the lack of transparency, I can attest from personal experience that our current moderators are not being as unreasonable as I once considered many of them to be. I can say this with confidence as I have not yet been banned on this new site, while on the previous I received dozens of bans, some of which were many months at a time for minor offences. This can likely be attributed to the new rules. despite this, moderation is still far from perfect. There is little transparency into the banning and appeal process and a tremendous amount of sameness in staffing. While we have run out of jumpers to pool from, in many ways the mysterious moderation selection still reeks of nepotism and an 'in-group' dynamic where all new moderators already know each other. There are exceptions; however, many of the variety moderators who made this site dangerous have become inactive of late. Increased activity is always nice, and having moderators act like normal members benefits the community. I cannot speak for Mentors as of yet because I'm still not entirely clear on their role. [b]7. Collapsed conversations in threads[/b] While this is more of an irk than a true issue, I cannot stand that I have to click arrows to read out conversations. discussion may have many facets; however, there is rarely a time when I consider a response-to-a-response not worthy of my default view. Conversations are dynamic in nature, and the most enjoyable responses do not always emerge directly from the initial topic. [b]6. The Like Feature[/b] I feel the like feature is stealing away discussion. When presented with the choice of developing a well-thought-out supporting post or clicking a button, Occam's Razor takes effect. While many argue that users would just post "This" or "Agreed" in its absence, I feel rules can also be used to prevent repetitive posting. First, agreeing with a post contributes nothing new to conversation. A feature that facilitates this does not benefit the forums, it simply increases the biases associated with a post. Whether you like this post or not should have no bearing on the points it makes. Secondly, such a feature facilitates the majority fallacy. It is my belief that anything which facilitates ignorance should be removed. [b]5. The growing divide between the Bungie.net "Community Manager" and the Bungie.net Community[/b] Thank christ for the mailsack, because I feel it's our only interaction with deej. Since the launch of destiny all "Community Focus" posts have spotlighted groups that have no presence in the Bungie.net Community. Instead, all recent candidates have been through other mediums such as youtube, twitch, and other external sites. While it was not uncommon in the days of Halo and before to showcase external groups, these external groups at least held a presence within the forum community which established them. I think the "dad's of destiny" feature was a good effort, but if the news article had never been posted, I still would not know of their existence on this site. I think it's understandable why there have been no post-destiny spotlights focusing on the forums, and that's because the forums have little to be proud of. Threads are often pushed off pages, and groups drew the short stick in the most recent site update. For me, groups represented the main means for member retention, and the recent reduction of group features benefited no one. The beating heart that held many users to this site has been de-emphasized. In essence, there is a lack of user contribution occurring on this site. It seems that all destiny-related creative content is happening somewhere else, and it wouldn't trickle down here unless there was a news article about it. What we need is more emphasis on performing users within the Bungie.net forums, and ultimately this can only be achieved by altering the current forum structure. [b]4. Pretend Forums[/b] I thought melding the forums into one was a fine idea. Chaotic, surely, but it also presented a means to eliminate the metadiscussion that could ruin a discussion if it was considered to be in the "wrong" forum. What I and the web team did not anticipate was the influx of new members seeking teammates. The biggest problem is that this issue was raised already, and the web team essentially pretended to fix it. Forums became tags and artificial boundaries were made to appease the confused. However, no explanation as to what belonged where was provided, which has lead us to the sea of recruitment threads we are experiencing now. This lack of actual rigid forum structure, compounded by the lack of clarity in the rules, has resulted in the forums becoming a disorganized mess. I think "drinking from the hose" was an appropriate metaphor for the forum feed, but even with these new "forum" divider tags, I still feel like discussion is unsorted. This is a problem that cannot be glossed over. Without a rigid structure there is no organization to these boards. The only alternative to fixing the forums is to view only threads and posts of users you have followed. While this provides a better means to access topics of interest, it also fragments the community and closes you off from many new discussions. It is better to segregate discussion by subject-matter rather than by who is posting. [b]3. Titles and Member Retention[/b] When user titles were removed I cried in triumph for an entire day. One day I might even dedicate a bench or something to whomever decided to do away with those hellish things. The old user titles were always a double-edged sword. In one hand they were beneficial as they gave value to accounts which had trust and contributed actively. On the other hand, they were greatly weighed down by join-date elitism. Join date should have no bearing on how a user is treated or respected on a website, but on this one there is a blatant occurrence of ageism. To make matters worse, member title bars were re-implemented, and they were not emphasizing good member qualities such as post contributions or trust rating, but the very seniority that divides this website today. If we are to hope to improve member retention, we should celebrate new members' abilities to contribute to the website, not the fact that they'll never be as old as other members. [b]2. Code of Conduct[/b] It was a common subject of my debates that the previous forum rules were not specific enough. Why the new Code of Conduct is even posted on this site is beyond me. The CoC exists to clarify to users what behaviours are acceptable and unacceptable on this website. In some sort of lapse in judgement, this aide to users has become a joke for the web team to play with, and now the users have no guidance to what can get them banned. If you want users to know what not to post, clarity is a big factor. It would be better if the forums just linked to the Terms of Use, for at least then people wouldn't have to waste their time reading the CoC.