Forum experiences

I have several. Most of which being from the one I was banned from, Equestrian Dreamers. But there are others too.

Most of them being long stories and honestly I've moved past most of them.

 

Some of mine we're admittedly my fault as well and I've admitted it.

Others though... well... I'd say not so much and just people being jerks.

 

Mine was just people refusing to accept my opinions on multiple topics and bashing me constantly every chance they got for them. They even did so on threads completely unrelated to the issue.

This is why it got to the point that it is currently at and why I quit Equestrian Dreamers for good.

 

There was a certain IRC channel and message board that I used to visit in 1999-2002 or thereabouts. I was still a teenager at the time (read: immature), and my offline behaviors sometimes leaked into those arenas. It got to the point where people started thinking negatively of me even when I wasn't actively being a jerk; on one occasion I was kicked out of the channel after asking what "arigatou" meant, and multiple times I became a complete nuisance from the perspective of one of the admins.

I tried to patch things up afterwards, though I don't know how successful I was at the time. Since then, I've tried to keep a lid on my more negative traits to keep myself from getting into trouble, and I like to believe that I've been more successful than I was back then.

 

Well, I didn't want to take negativity with me into a new forum but this thread was here and I felt that if I didn't vent at some point I was going to explode. It's pathetically, sadly ironic that my worst forum experiences have been on sites devoted to a television show where friendship was the primary theme, but that is the case with me.

When I was brand new to the fandom, just getting into the show, I joined MLPF. At first, it was everything I could hope for. Lots of people to talk to, active roleplays, I even got to play my favourite pony regularly. It was wonderful. Then, a couple months in, I made a suggestion that I thought would improve a section of the forum. Recognizing the amount of work it would take, I also volunteered to help implement it. The moderator in charge took my suggestion as criticism of the way that section was run and proceeded to inform me, angrily, about what she did in the course of running it. I probably should have stopped all contact at that point but I was new and eager and foolish enough to volunteer for a new project on the forum anyway. I worked at it a lot, tried to impress with what I did while keeping my head down so I didn't accidentally anger her again, but it was soon obvious that whether I was there or not didn't matter much to the moderator or anyone else. Meanwhile, the moderator arbitrarily made one of her forum friends a member of the staff. I quit the project loudly. Only reason I stayed on the forum was for roleplaying. Meanwhile, criticisms I have made over the course of years have usually been made into implemented features, without credit or acknowledgement. When I mention this, I get warnings. Their staff choices are coming home to roost now, though, as they are currently embroiled in politics while attempting a change in the site's governance. I give the site a year under its new operation, or until some staffer realizes the only way new hardware is going to be acquired for the site is out of their pocket.

Only good thing about the whole situation at MLPF is that I learned what jerks they had on staff before I acted on my notion of making a financial contribution to the site. I have since had a strict "no donations" policy for any site I don't personally own.

At about the same time, I joined Canterlot.com. I was interested in that site primarily because they had an even more developed roleplay section than MLPF. I played, made some friends, didn't quite "click"; with everybody but those I did were great to roleplay with, so I didn't mind. There was one mod, however, that I suspected had taken an immediate disliking to me, for reasons he never made clear to me, just from his tone in communicating with me, but since I wasn't doing anything wrong, I didn't think anything of it. Eventually, I even became a staff member, which thrilled me since it was something I hadn't been able to do on MLPF due to my lousy experiences there. Then, the admins decided to delegate some authority and put the mod who hated me in overall charge of staffing. One of his first actions was to give me the boot. He sent me a token ten-word message (half of which was the subject line) asking if I still wanted to be a staff member, shortly after I had signed off for the night. By the time I answered next morning, I noticed that I was already gone. When I confronted him about it, he said he had waited "for hours" for me to respond. This was a blatant lie - it was less than 45 minutes between the time he sent the message and when I'd been cut. The admin offered me the position back, but said outright that she trusted the mod's judgement, at which point I knew I was never going to get a fair shake there again and it would likely be a matter of time before I found myself sacked again, once the mod could justify it a second time. Again, I'm still there only because of two people I like. I wouldn't recommend anybody waste their time with Canterlot.com now. It's an incestuous hole that may look like a forum, but is actually run like the private playground of about twelve people who are either current or former staff members that have been there for many years. They say they welcome new members, but once registered, they're pretty much ignored, unless they can produce something the staff can exploit, like artwork. This is why they have a registered to active user ratio of nearly 500 to one.

Again, sorry for the rant. I really wanted to just come here and quietly post about ponies and not get involved, but, I needed an outlet and this one was here. Thank you. I'll go back to being quiet now.

EDIT: That project I volunteered for on MLPF? It finally saw the light of day nearly two and a half years later. Did I get credited for what I wrote? Nope.

EDIT 2: The admin at Canterlot.com also seems to have no qualms about stealing your intellectual property when it suits them.

 

To be completely honest...

My IP address has changed a few times (DID NOT DO IT MYSELF) and I made some alt. accounts on Equestrian Dreamers and made a few posts on said alt. accounts just to mess with them.

Is it trollish? Probably. Do they deserve it? I'd say... yes. Yes they do.

I could do it again as I can check their forums again... but... I'm not sure it's worth it anymore and I've run out of alt. e-mail accounts.

 

Way back in the day, my experiences were alright, when all things were said and done. I started as a friendless shut-in who wanted to overcome their mental handicaps, so I found a small community that focused on some things that I liked and started my serious socializing adventure there, at the ripe ol' age of twenty-two. (I'd never used a forum before, or done much in the way of socializing on the Internet in any way up until that point in my life.) After only a week, I was scouted for a minor moderator position, which was unheard of and didn't go over well with some people. I wasn't expecting it or ready in any way, but I was convinced to give it a try. Being the puppy dog that I was at the time, I just wanted to be helpful and all that jazz. I even won over two of the most outspoken individuals that disliked/opposed the group that I was associating with.

Through the good and the bad, it helped me grow as a person over the years, which wouldn't have been possible in real life. I mostly focused on providing fun and content for the community, which included IRC and IMs, and turned down promotions for a while, until I felt that the circumstances were right and it wouldn't appear as if I was interested in the position for the wrong reason(s). I also volunteered to help update the site's content for a while, and even became an administrator. However, fighting against myself routinely burned me out, which made it hard to push my depression aside, so it wasn't long before I stepped down as an administrator so I could join the ranks of the ordinary user, and not long after that that I had a sort of midlife crisis and pretty much gave up on the idea of being a sociable person.

From there, I went back to writing fan-fiction, which I put aside when I tied myself up with that forum and socializing in general. Now my social experiences, whether they come from forums or the comment sections of sites where fan-fiction is hosted, mostly consist of butting heads with people. In putting aside accommodating people and being the kind of person that others can like (for the most part), being honest and candid, and contentious when I disagree with something, hasn't made things all that enjoyable for me. It's nearing the point where I don't want to deal with people at all, ever.

So, here I am, at thirty-four, still friendless and a shut-in, writing fan-fiction that hardly anyone likes and/or understands, and that's pretty much the sanitized version of my summed-up life. Forums can be a nice distraction from the monotonous void that is my life, but I simply don't fit in anywhere or with anyone, and I'm growing tired of bothering with being social. Eventually, I'll probably stop using forums since they usually have nothing to offer to me, nor me them.

 

You've got an arsenal of words, Tempest, and you make an excellent foil to yours truly. I'd say that's a decent-sized offering right there.

 

I just got 2 more bans with no full explanation whatsoever.

*sighs*

This is getting sickening at this point...

 

It's because you're aggressively opinionated, and seem unwilling to have a rational discussion about anything.
It puts people off.

There you go. The reason that you have so much trouble on forums... is you.

I'm not saying this to be an a-hole, man. I'm telling you this because nobody else seems to be willing to do so, and I know a person can't change if they're not aware that there's a problem.

 

Oh I've been banned from there for life. I had a disagreement with a mod. Jeric started to mary sue in a rp, where i reminded her the mary sue rules. She got mad and told me to simply mind my own, I removed her from the rp, and told her not to mary sue to be able to return, she then temp banned me for insulting a mod, when i returned i called her a assclown. Perma banned.

I've also returned about 5 times, with alts. Gone back into the rp that Jeric was in, and start being a asshat, by getting a really important role and then just being a assclown to everyone, until they banned me again and derailing the rp. i also began on my last account to make slight references to my old OC's.

Jeric now doesn't do any rp's with anyone with any name with 'Shadow' in it. LOLZ

Even made a topic about how to report a mod being a assclown, he was the first to reply telling the whole forums he was not a assclown though i didn't mention him by name.

So Jeric, you are a assclown, by default.

if its MLPforums, tell them to stop being rude other Cipher Splash will come back and screw with there coding.

They get really pissy after i did that LOL

 

Ah yes. MLPForums.

I've heard so many horror stories about that forum that I've honestly lost count at this point.

I'd probably be banned from there too in less than a day.