Dear Folks,
Before I begin, please note that
this is not an advertisement. Arnox, the staff, and I have been having some discussions, and I would like to get some input from you all. I have been thinking about starting a new site. A totse3, of sorts. That is my suggestion.
Some of this stemmed from posts of sentiments from our admin being open to an additional community
1. I also noticed some support from a few of you
2, which helped propel my decision.
Although Arnox has offered to let me take over The Sanctuary
3, a trust for which I am very thankful, I think it would best good to have a new site, a new chance, and a rebirth of a new beginning. Arnox has done a great job in creating The Sanctuary, and he has put up with a lot of crap. This move, if it were to happen, might displace a few people, but I feel that it is a chance to gain back many who have been lost. We lost at least 90% of the totse2 userbase since it went down in October 2013. The darkbb replacement was not good, though it was up until May 2014. We seem to have lost a lot of the Zoklet refugees too.
In case you are wondering what I would do differently, I have scratched up a few points. Of course I would be open to what you all thought, and some things would need to be done differently than before.
- We would be using vBulletin. With vBulletin, we would have content management. That means text-files, blogs, and possibly other add-ons.
- Less over-moderating, and the rules would be a little different. The over-modding part comes down to the banning. There has been a lot of it lately, and there wouldn't necessarily be as much banning.
- HB would be for whatever, as long as not CP or illegal stuff and it fit the site rules, and SG would be more serious discussion that doesn't fall in other forums. Other forums would be for serious discussion.
- NIMF would remain NIMF. It's for things that don't belong. Threads would not be created there.
- We would have more section mods, and less global mods. I would have to make sure we don't have too many mods for the needs. It does sound conflicting to say less over-modding and more section mods, but here is my thinking. With section mods on totse2, I basically told each mod to run their sections how they want, within the scope of the site rules and the description of the section. We always say at work, "run it like you own it." I laid out the site rules, and then allowed them to create their individual forum rules and sticky them. If I didn't agree with a rule, then we would discuss it, but they ran the forum. When people started doing things wrong or abusing their authority, they were de-modded. It created a sense of ownership and accountability.
Most section mods just moved things around and kept things tidy, rather than banning and infracting. After all, we want our users to come here and enjoy themselves, not worry about being kicked off the site. With a different userbase, we might have to make some adjustments, but that's my general thinking.
Some of you may be put off by the name totse3. I like it because we are basically emulating totse, and totse2 went down, so the name makes sense to me, but I'm not married to it. Please vote on whether or not it would be good to have a new site. If the name is lame, please suggest a new one.
The most important thing about any website like this is its community. So this wouldn't be
my site. It would be
our site.
Footnotes
1:
Spoiler
If you guys feel you can make a better place for the community, that's actually fine and, believe it or not, I encourage it. It would in reality be nice to not have to admin and have to be the guy nobody likes.
Actually, believe it or not, I would approve if someone made another totse-like website which passes my inspection and the admin there is actually a good one and further, if the admin actually ASKED before he started advertising on my site. I would even be willing to resign and maybe even give control of this site over to them.
You want 'em? I'll give 'em to you for a bargain deal. And then you can be the one people will call faggot and curse because you may have moved their precious thread over to another sub-forum. Then again, I don't think I'd wish this fate upon my worst enemy.
2:
Spoiler
Idio, if you would like to admin, you need only say. I'll give the site to you right now. It's yours if you want it.
Take the site Idio, it literally IS the only chance this community has. Until its taken from that incompetent fuckhead's hands, things will only get worse, more people will leave, the place with continue to be more irrelevant and pointless.
Come on Idio, do it for your country, do it for your people and do it...
For the memory of Zoklet and all who have been banned, arrested and made threads on how to make drugs!
Take it Idio', because I think you know the long term consequences for this site if you don't.
If it's only slight hesitation then fucking go for it. What's the worst that could happen? Getting made fun of by a bunch of low-lives on an internet forum?
So since both Arnox and Idio stopped posting entirely after this exchange, does this mean there is some....dare I say......Hope?
Is there discussion/negotiation going on behind the scenes?
Give us an update guys, inquiring minds want to know.....
Idio, I've been watching the comments of you and all the other mods very closely for several weeks in regard to a lot of the forum drama/policies....and I notice you especially choose your words very carefully so as not to upset the applecart. And being one of the more rational/mature people around here, you HAVE to realize there are a few obvious and quick things you could do to bring back some credibility back to these boards......but you aren't talking about it publicly since you are trying to remain loyal to Arnox.
If you think the ship is going down any how, why not at least try to take over the wheel and right things......instead of just going down into the murky depths of the ocean?
1. take over
2. demod zek
3. ???
4. profit
idio, if you start totse3, I'm with you...
Well, I want my totse2 back but we can't have everything.
3:
Spoiler
Idio, if you would like to admin, you need only say. I'll give the site to you right now. It's yours if you want it.