I think people could adapt if they were given to understand that meaningful things were there. However, again, I’ll point to my own experience, where I click on a topic that sounds interesting, only to find there’s nothing of substance, and I walk away again.
If I’m looking for Games, I don’t want to be met with Concepts of Games.
I get what you’re saying, I do. And I’m also in the middle of my own project, which I haven’t been able to make a thread for because of the temporary lockdown.
I don’t personally see the benefit to creating a new subforum for “In-Progress Game Concepts” while already having the “Project Ideas and Discussion” subforum. That feels like overly abstracting to me. However, I also do agree with removing such things from the Projects subforum, because I expect and want everything in Projects to be 1) Active development with 2) Something to show for it that I can 3) Play.
Maybe a sub-subforum inside Projects for WIP Concepts? And then the author links back to the old WIP thread when they graduate to a playable build to post about in the Projects root? Either way, you’re asking people to look somewhere else, which, going back to @Doughnut_Diet 's point, is still a “visibility” issue for people who are used to going only to the Projects subforum to find games.
This will be my last post on the subject, so let me be blunt: this does not work. This cannot work. If this amount of planning or foresight is the best you’re capable of, there is no future for Weight Gaming, either as a forum or a storefront.
It’s been three and a half months since the announcement about removing or changing the Projects section. 14-15 weeks, and you’re admitting that you still haven’t worked out the rules or changes that you plan to enact. You haven’t asked for user input about them. And yet, somehow, you’ve decided it’s okay to start enforcing this nebulous and unwritten set of changes without even notifying users of what they need to do to comply. That’s functionally insane, not to mention a massive extra burden on the moderation team.
You want Weight Gaming to be a storefront. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if you started hiding or removing product pages based on policies you haven’t even written yet? Itch is still recovering from self-inflicted wounds eight months later, despite having their clarified policy in place within hours of their sweeping changes. Do you really expect that Weight Gaming could retain any level of trust if you did the same where peoples livelihoods were involved? You can’t write this off by saying something like “the forum is the forum, and the store is the store”; you’re in charge of both, and your leadership informs the level of trust from the community both ways.
Now let’s take a look at what happened after these changes started being implemented without any clarification. Someone asking very relevant questions on the scope of this change was muted until the next day, with the claim that their attempts to get clarification had “no constructive purpose” beyond “creating dissent within the community”. Trying to figure out the unwritten rules currently being enforced is suddenly a community offense!
And then people start having their posts deleted for questioning where topics that were archived because their creator was banned fit into all of this. Not only does this kick off a second shitstorm where you have to clarify that the people were banned after your $2400/month fundraiser ended for conduct that happened before it started, it doesn’t answer any of the questions that were raised, doesn’t list any specific reason that the users were banned, doesn’t even state which users were banned despite the mere mention of those users now being grounds for removal. The case of a particular user who appears to have been recently banned or silenced (Were they one of the three mentioned in the “clarification” post? Is it forbidden to speak their name? Who fucking knows!) is particularly concerning because you assured them, weeks before the fundraising period began, that you were “hurt” by the idea that you’d take action against them for simply expressing their views. But from looking at any posts they’ve made after, it sure as hell didn’t hurt enough to stop you from going after them anyways!
Again, you want Weight Gaming to be a storefront. If you start removing products or vendors for perceived misconduct, but can’t even articulate when or what that misconduct was, your trust and support vanishes overnight. In fact, by refusing to openly address the situation, you’re giving complete narrative control to the people who have been ousted, because you control speech on your own platform and nowhere else. If the people who have been tossed out make detailed statements and bring receipts while all you can do is hem and haw and try to obfuscate your reasoning while insisting it’s somehow ‘clarity’, you can be damn sure the community is more likely to side with them, unless their behavior here was truly noxious - and if that were the case, why the fuck would you be waiting months before banning them?
Even after voicing my dissent about shutting down the Projects forum, and a number of other moderation choices before that, I bit my tongue and donated to the fundraiser; I had hoped that if you were willing to rely on the community more for financial support, you might actually start taking community feedback into account more heavily. I didn’t kick up a fuss when I realized that the Fetish Master subforum - by far the largest repository of information for and mods of the game on the internet - had been scrubbed completely from the site without statement, comment, or question shortly before the fundraiser began; by the time I noticed that it had happened, the fundraiser was nearing its end, and I’d have felt like an ass for throwing sand in the gears then. But the events of the last week have quite thoroughly dashed any sliver of hope I still had that you might eventually discover either the temperament or skillset to be trusted with managing a forum or storefront.
I don’t know if my request from the other day was written off as a knee-jerk reaction or just flatly ignored, but as I was entirely serious about it, I’ll reiterate it now: go ahead and archive Magical Viking Erika. I won’t be around to monitor or update the topic, and following the precedent of They Who Must Not Be Named, it seems that’s more than enough reason to lock down any discussion of the game at all.
it seems like every day i come on here the forum admins do something that makes everyone upset & its makin me scared we’ll lose this place & idk anywhere else to discover games in this vein and see their progress reports and updates. i dont think itd be that hard to stop doing things that upset the userbase, given we’ve said exactly what’d make us happy, but at this point it feels like theres something happening or someone working behind the scenes that keeps pushing all the decisions in the bad direction. if that sentence makes sense. it’s really late at night i dont have the ability to type and convey stuff very well right now so i hope that got the point across well enough.
You know, I don’t come here as often as I used to, I don’t know in what state the forum is, but reading all this, I can’t help but feel disappointment. Not just on staff, but on users as well.
It’s sad, there is a lot of valid criticism to be made about things that have happened, but people just seem too eager to ride their high horse and stand up to the staff to not bury their concerns in piles and piles of shit that is the condescending comments and insults. I can count in one hand the number of users who give actually readable criticism. The others seem to want the staff to be the villain so their attacks feel justified, when the alternative is, like, grot not being evil but just misguided? And instead of having the forum die and the “tyrant” fall, things could be sorted out? I know there have been repeated gaffes coming from him, but, in my opinion, if there is ANYONE who (still) deserves the benefit of the doubt, is grot.
People seem to forget that for a long time everything was on grot’s shoulders, and users who used the forum as a platform for their patreon and the likes never had to share a cent for it if they didn’t want to. I also don’t get the constant comparisons to corporate behaviour. Y’all are literally the shareholders and stakeholders here. As far as my limited view can see, grot has nothing to profit off of deceiving anyone here.
I’m not saying “but- but- think of their feelings guys”. I’m saying that this emotionally charged behaviour achieves absolutely nothing. It is objectively counterproductive. It adds clutter to the otherwise valid critique and/or concern that the staff has to dig through and interpret correctly, since clarity was thrown out the window for the most part in favor of… what again? Spectacle?
I won’t go much into why I’m disappointed on the staff, there’s plenty on that here already, and it’s nothing that hasn’t already been said. I just hope that communication will get the priority it deserves from now on.
It’s been evident for a while that most of the disruption is fueled by a small minority with strong personal beliefs. The reality is that you’ll likely never please them without the excessive type of moderation that they were calling for - the same type that ironically resulted in their own bans and the current forum shake-up. Despite disagreeing with them, I don’t believe in retroactively banning them with rules that haven’t even been disclosed yet. This is just bad practice.
As it stands, the forum is the only good place for developers and players to engage in detailed discussion with one another, be it ideas or projects - this is the website’s niche, and I’m sure it’s what most of us are here for. if you’re solely looking for playable games, Itchio is a better place to look.
Yes, there’s a few minor concerns with the projects forum, but it seems these changes are a knee-jerk reaction exacerbated by that vocal minority to the detriment of pretty much everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort from staff, but I don’t think it’s necessary to archive projects, tighten rules and act as bouncers for paid projects. Firstly, because I’m perfectly capable of filtering these myself, secondly because it’s presumptuous to expect moderation to spend their time acting like a discount algorithm for people too fragile to share a forum with projects they might dislike.
Realistically, all we needed was a small clean up of a few projects and users - gd1 for example. I don’t believe in project deletion, but all you had to do was condense all of their unfinished threads into a single topic. There was a similar instance with WeirdoBeardo spamming the forum with multiple games in a short period. Again, the most sensible option would’ve been to inform him and condense all of his topics instead of letting it roll like it did. Users were rightfully annoyed, AI or not. I’m sure hurt feelings could’ve been avoided if it was handled this way.
Once again, the root of the issue stems from the way a tiny minority of users have been using the projects forum. I’m all for hands-off moderation, but there are also instances where a bit of reasonable discretion can help things along. As it stands, we seem to be moving from one extreme to the other.
The “disruption” you’re talking about wouldn’t have happened at all had the singular moderator I’ve seen on this forum not start archiving a mass of projects without reaching out to any of the developers.
The AI part of the discussion is a tiny aspect but it’s obvious it struck a nerve with you enough to make an entire essay with the assumption that’s what us small minority is upset about.
In actuality the issue is we do really need a cleanup with the projects here and it should have absolutely started with clear communication and guidelines from the apparent new team of moderators and the sites owner. All of whom have been silent the past few days.
You can say it’s a minor concern and that you filter things out yourself because all you do here, presumably, is download games and leave no feedback. Personally seeing active development threads closed without warning and archived without notice is more than a minor concern.
I really don’t enjoy commenting in here at all, but I do want to drop in and say, I’m very much in the same boat as you. It’s that behavior that makes me not really want to come in here…period, honestly. While some people have legitimate criticisms, others feel like they come with a level of animosity that I would never want to open myself up to. That’s not meant to be pointed at anyone, I’ve just observed a lot over a long time now.
I don’t get how we got to this point. I just want it to stop.
I get ya though I hope you don’t let this color your view on the wider community. I know a lot of the people in the community are good people and (for both good and bad reasons) there is just a lot of people that are really critical of my decisions atm.
I hope that once I get everything done things will calm down a bit.
Look, I dont think anything I will say will make anyone happy and I still have a ton of work I need to get done if I am going to get the new procedures and everything sorted so I can get all of the new mods on and we can reopen projects. And no offense, but if krod or I spent all day just trying to address what everyone keeps bringing up I will never get projects opened back up in time. I am still checking in and reading what everyone is saying as I can.
I am not perfect, I never claimed to be perfect. End of the day I am just trying to do my best and I am sorry if my best is just not good enough.
I dont think anything I will say will make anyone happy
thats the thing, its not just saying that’ll make people happy but DOING.
now i dont mean “focus on every little complaint in this thread” but actually being transparent and consulting the public thats actively investing in the site. this is more or less the one thing people have really been asking for overall every time there’s some drama because more often than not it’d be able to avoid it completely.
for example this all could’ve been avoided pretty easily if you gave a heads up warning, say, a week before enacting the rule change to the project category. let people give their feedback (which likely would’ve included the creation of an in-dev category for projects nearing release but arent quite there yet), and took that feedback into consideration so that you dont piss people off.
and i get that you have a personal deadline for reopening the projects category, but weight gaming isnt a corporation, its a fetish game website that you want to be a community. if its for the best you can and should break that deadline rather than rushing it.
We’re in agreement. My point was that these hasty changes seem to be driven by the notion that the forum is in disarray because there’s maybe a dozen or so problem threads that could’ve been dealt with in a way that didn’t shake-up the entire projects category.
I never claimed the projects category was flawless, so I don’t know why you’re acting like am? Since you’ve checked my post history and made assumptions, you would’ve seen that I’m in favor of some better posting guidelines and opposed to excessive moderation and sweeping changes. I’m not in favor of archiving because it’s redundant and disruptive for both the user and staff - old, inactive projects already sink to the bottom. Not to mention having someone review it all is an insane amount of work.
Sorry for being unclear, I didn’t mean to imply that the way these changes have been handled is a minor concern, more so that a few problem projects have been totally blown out of proportion by a minority of users which has resulted in knee-jerk moderation decisions.
We probably don’t need to reach level 3 (though patrons should absolutely want it), but we didn’t even reach level 1. If you (grot) don’t feel up for it, then you can absolutely delegate the task of letting people know about changes in advance to someone that is less pessimistic & has less baggage.
I’m all for giving them more time to iron things out, but to call this a knee-jerk moderation decision is quite a statement. They’ve had (depending on when it became clear the forums could be funded) 1~3 months plus a few weeks to create their plan of action, prepare some informational posts about what will change and what will be done, and figure out how to enforce theses changes.
Instead, what we get are some out-of-pocket retroactive bans without ANY explanation to why they were made initially, a wave of archives for several projects without ANY posts explaining the criteria or why it’s happening outside of the vague initial post on this thread, and deletion of several categories and posts without (you guessed it) ANY transparency from admin and moderation. It was only after the community pressed for explanations for why grot explained they’re prioritizing speed currently and that they will try to make amends on their errors, even if they still believe their actions were mostly right.
I’m trying to be fair and objective to how this situation was handled (at least initially, since we’re all “just human” at the end of the day), but the more information that gets revealed, the more frustrated I get at the feeling of seeing that no game plan was ever made to INCLUDE the community’s input, or at the very least, keep us informed about what the game plan even is outside of onboarding some new moderators, re-opening project category, and maybe the eventual release of the main site that’s been dormant for some years.
I’ve already said I disagree with the changes, bans and the way this entire situation has been handled. Please don’t think that I’m in favor of it for pointing out the irony of certain users demanding bad moderation practices, then getting banned when their wish comes to fruition.
I think knee-jerk is fair, because it certainly doesn’t feel these plans have had months of preparation behind them. There’s a lot of voices in this place and I get the impression that Grot and the moderation team felt under pressure to deliver and messed up, I don’t think there’s any other explanation for it.
Excess in either direction isn’t ideal, we didn’t need an unmoderated projects board, nor do we need mass changes, bans and censorship. This entire situation could’ve been avoided with some sensible clean-up and a bit of unintrusive moderation, none of which involve restricting access and having staff scour the entire project board top to bottom. I suppose all of that starts with better communication first and foremost.
So i kept refraining from saying anything, but i felt i need to say this. You all have some strong opinions for how things should be done, and are brutal to anyone who does not live up to your standards.
I’d like to remind the community in general that pre fundraiser, that is not what @grotlover2 pushed for, but we did. The push to help fund the place was more our idea than Grots. A lot of you have some major cojones to imply Grot pushed for us all of this and not us, and is some how miss using the money we gave him to keep this place open. He was simply going to close the projects category and be done with moderating that section, he made it clear what it had become, that was not his reason for hosting the forums, which was discussion of game development and and game mechanics.
Grot made it clear this place is a cool hobby, that had/has become an unfun/stressful moderation task, that costs money. We the community did not want to see the place close so we offered to help financially, and i know a few have offered to help moderate. But it is imperative if you dont want the place to close that you all stop riding Grot like a stallion you can break in and make do things your way. This is just not constructive.
Tbh to common sediment from all sides is this is not a fun place to hang out, for Grot or others. And as far as i can tell its because a bunch of know it all Karen’s cannot let the details go on exactly how things are done by others, weather its posting fetish games they don’t wanna see, or how moderation reorganizes topics before putting them in their final place. Make like frozzen “Let it go, let it go…” stop getting your panties in a wad because something is not exactly how you would like to see it.
There ya made me do it, stoop to beeing a Karen telling you all what to do. Is everyone happy now that i have become a hypocrite.
Time is the question, and I’d add here this is not a full time job, they have actaull full time jobs this is a hobby they do after work, when they have time.
Again i agree, and it seems again as per normal if someone is not doing what you want or your way, there vilified and relentlessly badgered and brow beated into doing something your way.
The bans weren’t executed in a great way, although I think the ship for those users providing any meaningful contribution to the forum outside of harassing people and screaming at Grot had sailed many months ago. It would be good if this were a learning opportunity for the future, but frankly I don’t think there’s anything to be done about it now that would improve the site.
I do agree that the archiving was done in a weird way that created a lot of unnecessary moderation work, and will create even more in the future when the projects board reopens. Keep in mind however many people have been sitting on projects waiting for the board to open up - there’s already going to be a backlog of moderator actions that will probably be necessary soon after the reopening, and sorting through the un-archival requests will add a lot of work that wasn’t really necessary, when the rule could have applied to new games after the full rules were announced ahead of the board reopening. That said, that ship has also sailed. Again I’m mostly just hoping this has been a learning experience, there’s not much that can be done now by nitpicking individual decisions, especially since you’ll probably reopen a bunch of them soon enough anyway.
I do think that this community provides very important value for developers and especially for developers trying to get their games seen, both paid and unpaid. Itch frankly is worthless for anything NSFW now and that situation will probably continue forever. At best it’s an alternative for Google Drive to let people download a game they found linked elsewhere. It has virtually no discovery options unless you’re contacting the people who operate big game collections or something. Even if you’re making your game completely free and avoiding the deindexing, how many people log in every day to stare at the same two dozen or so games in the weight-gain tag that have barely changed in 8 months? Not to mention the number of spambots on itch making this site a much better place for actual discussion and feedback.
All this to say I do appreciate what you’ve done with the forum in general, Grot. I know you’ve been struggling with a lot of other things both on and offline, so honestly you and the new mods could focus primarily on new topics and simply laying out the new rules for quite a while in the project category and most people would be content with that without needing to dredge through god knows how much old stuff. It would save some pain for current users as well as yourself, and the whole “cleanup of old junk” could be a slow ongoing background effort that most people, frankly, will not see unless a post gets necro’d years after the OP vanished. (I mostly say this in case you have any other plans in this vein: the archiving looks like it’s pretty much complete.)
I’ve also been biting my tongue on this, but I guess I’ll put it out there.
Moderation doesn’t normally comment on Bans. In fact, they normally don’t even announce the things. Because they shouldn’t. Not only is it an ethical quandary, it can also become a legal issue. Do I seriously think any of the three recently banned individuals are going to be petty enough to lodge a Defamation suit if Moderation talks about them negatively by name? No. But they could (and at least one of them definitely is a petty individual), and that would be the literal and immediate end of Weight Gaming as a site and service. This is what Grot is really referring to when he talks about ‘the users’ privacy’. The only reason we all even know about this is because the users in question were active and visible long time members of the forum, who didn’t just come in, land like a wet fart, and be escorted out again in a day or two.
Of course, they’re under no obligation not to talk about it themselves, and from the sound of it they are in other circles, which is a fun detail of how the legal system works = p
Gonna be pedantic when I probably shouldn’t, but the idea that anyone could find a lawyer that would actually take a case to sue a forum for simply mentioning they banned them is laughable. Acting like the ramifications of answering “Was x banned? Why?” with “Yes, for harassment/breaking site rules/etc.” extend that far is silly to the point of naivete.
I refer you to Afroman, and his music like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWQBCGkyLuk made after police destroyed his property, the had the balls to sue him for defamation. See Legal Eagle explain what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pvJmxe7LdE. LOL there is someone to take anything to court
Yes, a police union unsuccessfully trying to sue someone into silence after breaking into his house on a dubious warrant and stealing his money and a private individual suing a forum for saying they were banned for breaking site rules are definitely comparable situations. Treating these as equivalent is definitely not silly to the point of naivete.
