I don't think i'll address all of this because I can't very well "disprove" your opinion Crow, and that would take a very long time anyway:
~Crow~ Wrote:
This is an issue I feel you are greatly exaggerating. If you can point me to posts or threads where people are "bickering" over the ranks, please do so. The main problem with the system comes from only people such as yourself who constantly complain about it. "Bickering" requires two parties, and unless your party brings it up first, the issue tends not to be debated.
Come on, just look around you. Almost every public argument with moderators in the last two years has been as a result of this rank/dragon point garbage. There was just a big mess in somebody's congratulations thread(s), all of which is a direct result of of this ranking system. I'm not sure whether or not AfghanBlade got banned, but there seemed to be an incident there, and IOLKW was just banned too. The reason they were banned was because of this rank nonsense. I know you're going to tell me that it's because they were flaming users or personally attacking people on the boards, or whatever else, which is true in part, but ultimately the only reason for that is the ranking system. I'm not defending them, but I can't entirely blame them.
Of course having some newer and lesser known members 'promoted', and made to look morally or intellectually superior to older, popular, or well respected members is going to upset people. Anybody can see that's just a horrible concept for dealing with people. And it IS making them look morally or intellectually superior, because they're telling people what to do and ranking the way people post their opinions on a scale from 1-5 at their own discretion. They don't even have to do it, it's just the fact that they can. If that doesn't make them out to be superior I don't know what does. Imagine if Siddu or G-baby did that to you, and ranked all your posts from 1-5, depending on what they thought YOU "deserved". That's the whole reason people have rebelled against the SP's since day one. They're just regular members, but they're telling other regular members what to do. Thus, friction. And then you get situations like people being banned, and those who are promoted becoming all bitter because people turn on them "for no reason", as i'm sure you've seen with various Shadow Priests.
And why all of this? It's all about those God damned Super Happy Fun Points. Just imagine the board without those for a second:
-This discussion would never take place, for starters.
-There would be no Shadow Priests upset that people were on their case, because there would be no Shadow Priests at all.
-There would be no users upset about newbie pseudo-mods telling them what to do.
-There would be no mods getting bogged down in trivial arguments over who gave which user what points, etc, leaving them to do more important things. For example, if it wern't for DP's, Chan would have never had half the trouble she initially had. It would just completely release you from all obligations pertaining to DP's.
-You could get rid of unsavory people more easily, because all you'd have to do is give one written warning, then ban them like all other boards do, without feeling obliged to warn them with little symbols for each tiny offense.
I guess all these arguments and such could be solved if everybody would shut up and not question the distribution of points or ranks, but people
do question them, and always will. People just don't fit into this system, it just doesn't work, and that's why most boards just have two ranks, moderators/staff, and users. No segregation of groups of users that are superior to others.
In fact, remember 6 months ago when I said to you "Do you think anything will have changed in 6 months time" regarding this issue when we were discussing this exact same thing? Well, what's changed? Nothing has. It's still the same chaos being caused by the same problems, just like I said it would be. And in a further 6 months, what do you think will have changed? Nothing will have. It will still be these same problems occurring, but with a new group of people. Then you can ban them, and 6 months down the track, you'll still just be having the same problems. This is neverending. The situation we have right now will always be the future of this board until the rank/point system is removed or disabled.
~Crow~ Wrote:
The fact that the end of your time in #mortalkombat came around the same point as your personality change, I related the two incidents. If you only were concerned with the rating system, why leave the IRC channel and stop hanging out?
That's an issue unto itself. But I was never really that fond of #mortalkombat anyway, so it should be no surprise I stopped visiting. Above everything else I disliked about it, I just found it pretty boring to begin with to be honest.
~Crow~ Wrote:
Again, I don't fully agree with this. People change over time, but six months isn't a very long period of time and you wouldn't have been shocked to find what you did in the IRC channel upon returning. As I said, I feel it was you who had changed.
You're right that 6 months isn't a very long period of time, but it was the 6 months from which MKD info was being released. The amount of change in that period was very noticable, just due to the influx of new users alone, if nothing else. I wasn't the only one who noticed the changes in the general quality of the atmosphere here.
~Crow~ Wrote:
I find it hard to believe you would adopt a phrase such as "if you can't beat them, join them". That is the motto of a weak person, someone without a real care as to what happens here.
Well, I really didn't care what happene here, because at the time I couldn't see it getting any better. I wasn't the only one either. A lot of users stopped visiting around that time. Where's Shoe? Nova? Temp? At that time, a lot of people couldn't be bothered anymore.
~Crow~ Wrote:
Did you or did you not just say you thought, "if you can't beat them, join them"? I think you pretty much confirmed my assumptions on this one, krackerjack. Honestly, you admitted that you were going along with what everyone else was doing and here you say you were only thinking for yourself .I find it extremely hard to believe myself, and this is what I meant by "cool". You're doing all the "in crowd" things. Make yourself a new username for no real reason other than to do it, change your personality and stop helping people. So yeah, don't use phrases that approve of submitting to the will of others if you honestly are doing what you think is the right thing to do.
These are two seperate issues, and aren't contradictory. My 'personality change' vs my view on the rank system. Thinking for myself pertains to the issue of rank - not many people before me posted the same opinions I had posted in such detail, that was my own conclusion. "If you can't beat them, join them", pertains to my attitude at the time that the boards were in such a state that they couldn't be saved so I might as well just join everybody else, which has less to do with trying to join the crowd for the sake of being "cool", and more to do with me doing whatever I could to get some enjoyment out of the site before it went to hell. Maybe I should have just left instead.
As for trying to be "cool" by creating a new username: Nobody had done it up until that point except MKS, and I already gave my reasons for my change, so that's debunked. I still help people too, when I think they genuinely need it and/or deserve it. It's not my job to help everybody who could be helped by reading the FAQ, but if I see somebody I can help or somebody asks me a question, i'll answer it if I think it deserves an answer. If what you really mean is that I don't help moderators anymore, you're right, I don't. And I shouldn't be expected to because it isn't my job either. But like I said, if I still visted #mortalkombat, I would still 'help' you guys out where I thought it was necessary.
~Crow~ Wrote:
If you don't enjoy the behaviour here, don't single out the moderators and place all the blame on us. Why not respond to members who flame the mods as well? Or maybe you agree with the things they say and think we all should just take the abuse because we deserve it? This is what I meant by "cool". It isn't "cool" to do this sort of thing to someone unless that person is a mod/SP, and yet you claim you dislike the fact the site is in some form of 'decline'. It certainly isn't anyone's fault 100%.
I don't place all the blame on you. But I do place a lot of the blame on the rank system though. And yeah, sometimes you guys do deserve the abuse because sometimes you guys fuck up, and when that happens, people will jump on you. They do it to me, they do it every other user. If you want to be treated like every other user because you're just a human like the rest of us, then that's the way it is. You even had Shadow Priests that did it to other user's for months. Of course, sometimes you also cop unnecessary criticism or abuse, and I don't think you deserve that, just like any other user wouldn't deserve it, beit an SP, a 'vet', a newbie, whatever.
As for responding the users that 'flame' the mods, I don't think it's fair for other users to criticise you for supossedly ranking up females just because they're female, for whatever that's worth. I think it's ridiculous really.
And I don't necessarily claim the site is in some form of decline. I said I thought it was, at a time, but now i'm in two minds as to whether it ever really was.
~Crow~ Wrote:
I was simply being honest, I felt what you said was quite hypocritical and since you were the main reason I had to close that thread, I addressed it. Not to single you out, but because it was off topic and ultimately that was the cause of the lock.
Well, I don't know why you thought you had to close the thread because of my post, I don't think that was necessary at all. I was completely finished, and had no intention of continuing that discussion. I thought that was pretty clear. I don't see why it would be my post that got the thread closed when all I was doing was replying to an inquiring SP. It takes two to tango and all that. I'm sure that thread could have gone on quite merrily, but okay, that's obviously your decision.
I never heard that song before and I really like it!! You're the man!!! *Runs to Limewire* LOL 
