-spreads love everywhere-

I'm all for this site to be free of drama but this is a community, and much like communities in the real world, there will always be drama.

With that said, however, I do think people should make more of an effort to have constructive conversations-- or even silly ones-- as long as they leave people feeling either enlightened or lighthearted.

I'd love a community that's more about having fun and being positive because its a light hearted and well rounded community, rather than all of us rallying together like a mob and practically waiting with bated breath for the next wave of drama. Drama is unavoidable, but this site shouldn't be defined by it?

I believe everyone has different ideas as to what would be best for the site and its community, but there isn't a lot of communication, just drama, talking AT eachother, getting angry, and being resentful and spiteful. I think we all want this site to be amazing and fun, but I believe a lot of the views aren't meshing. No one is seeing eye to eye, instead all I see is anger, and wank. Different views, different plans, and no communication.

We should like @Kosukechan said make more of a concerted effort to make constructive conversation, or just converse positively. Drama is unavoidable with groups of people, but it seems as if this community is seriously addicted to it. I even admit to getting somewhat elated at the passing gossip. Though I will admit, sometimes its a bit intimidating to make actual conversational threads.

You can always kick out all the kids. And I'm not talking age here. That said, the site is semi-anonymus and even if it wasn't, no human nor computer has a chance of filtering idiots out.

I am yet to see a community which can keep integrity as new people stream in, that is a fact. People fail at communication irl, and allthough the internet removes many prejudices usually acquired irl, communication still fails to take place many times even though words are being read and written. There are two possible conclusions from this; either we don't really communicate because we want to(meaning that we don't really have that much to share with each other) or we just really suck at it as a population.

Speaking like an asshole, your baby's hit puberty. It's only gonna get worse. But it doesn't have to be that way. What I came to believe is that even large amounts of people can cooperate well if there's a common emotion that binds them. That, we don't have. Wars are the best example; we cooperate so well when it comes to hatred.

tl;dr and the whole point; This site needs a more specific purpose. Even more so considering the age of most users and the tendency to run away from constructive communication on the internet. Without a goal, we'll be seeing more of Boku no Pico and less grammar until finally everyone hits the leetspeak level.

I admire you for not banhammering all over the place, I really do.

Ill try harder to be a more loving, happy user. That is all.

I built it, then I built it again and again. With every build, the site was getting more advanced, optimized, aesthetically mature.

I will never stop appreciating you for that

Despite my heavy commitment to the site, which as many know I consider "my baby", I receive a lot of personal critique, accusations, and straightforward hatred.

You can't satisfy everyone, people are diffrent.

What's worse, the people in question are supported and appreciated by the vocal majority for doing so.

I like bad boys. There are people who support you too, you know.

Many of my previous decisions were immature or wrong, and many of the contemporary arguments against me base off them. Yet you have to understand that they seemed right at the time. The management of a large semi-anonymous community is not an easy task and very difficult to get right from the first steps on.

I can understand that. I also apreciate you for admitting your past weakness. Also when you gain nothing from it, it can be hard to go on.

As some people like to shout out to me, I have left, "ragequit" the site a few times before. I would like to see you, dear reader, in a position where 16.000 something people have a problem with you (or seem to be) because of any reason, and not lose your mind.

We don't have that much users who are active and not just registed once, but maybe you should come prepared to this, because the more users you have the harder it is to control them.

Why did I make the site? For fun. Fun of development, first. After it took off thanks to unexpected exposure, the fun was communication. So many people, talking about various subjects! Roleplaying! Being funny!

This is a mistake if you expected it to be like that forever, users are alive people who have their problems sometimes and some of them can throw this on your site if they feel like it. And children/immature people/people who don't speak proper English have access to the webz, not sure if there is a way to sort us out.

It will not happen with people figuratively eating pop corn and watching the drama. If you don't stand up for legitimate communication then nobody will, and then you're next to be flamed.

My position is that everyone is wrong, to avoid conflicts I eat my popcorn. I don't want to be involved in this and I don't really have a right to be. Even if I try to say what I think - will they listen, Gar? They are creating drama and they will refuse to listen to anyone trying to spoil their fun. So I better just watch.

As to the whole point - I tried to talk to some users before about stopping spreading the hate all over the place, because it leads to only more hate, but it had no effect. As I said I support noone, because none of you are listening to each other, only looking for more reasons to start the argument. And your beginning the conversation on main with calling some of the users a "disgrace" is not helping, just saying.

I can only speak for myself when I say that I will try to be a loving, happy user. I try to be grammatically correct, and flaming people has never been something that interested me, but not everyone else will be this way. I do appreciate you for speaking out on this because I think more users need to pay attention to how they conduct themselves. Of course, even with this, many of the users who read this will say that it has all been said before, and ignore your wonderful thread. I wish that wasn't so.

First; Thank you for this wonderful forum. I've met so many fun people, and have had so much fun over the few years i have been on here. This means a lot to me, and I cannot thank you enough for developing and making this site!

Second; I miss seeing all the smiles too... I actually went away for awhile because I missed seeing all the fun we've had on here in the past. It's gotten so depressing on here. I really, really want the fun to come back! I'm tired of all these old grudges on you, and the staff, coming back once and awhile.

Speaking of which... why can't people just stop it with all the bashing? Most of the stuff they're bashing about is pointless and just adds to the depressing atmosphere of this site. I really do not like it, and I'm frankly getting annoyed with the bashing as much as the other normal regular users.

Anyways... I'll try harder to make more interesting threads, and try my hardest to bring back the fun in this site too! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

TL;DR

Fuck you pal is the new EOF.

@Senkonna Please elaborate. Thank you for your concideration, mein kind. Unt smörgåsbord for minnasan.

Drama, drama, drama...I don't like drama unless it's on tv. It's one of the reasons why I did my best to graduate high school. If a person only wants to cause problems they should go somewhare that's not ment for fun, or as an escape from reality. Sites like this just aren't ment for trouble.

I agree wholeheartedly with this post. I'm not very aware of all that has been happening on Colorless, but I have felt a change in atmosphere on the site despite not being a very active user. I notice that the site has seemed to have "lack luster" and become less fun than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that it's completely hopeless. In fact, I believe that The Colorless, it's amazing staff, and wonderful users alike can make a comeback. I think we can make this site the way it used to be and still is- Entertaining and Inspiring. I love the people and everything about this site. Living in a city, I'm surprised with all of the advice and encouragement that everyone gives to each other on here. I've met some really nice and interesting people myself and they outshine all the bad things. Every communicative site has some issues and it's of course, very trying for the moderators and admins to keep a hand on everything. Sometimes I'm sure we all feel inside that nothing good lasts for long. However, there'll always be a tommorrow and there'll always be a Coloress :)

Hm. Didn't notice this thread with a phone screen so small. Let me say this. I'm a newfag. Or, rather. I'm not an oldfag. I've never posted on "the old Colorless" I don't remember the Number Wars. As far as I know, Trev was an admin from the site's beginning. And I STILL don't get what "wew" means. But let me tell you what I do remember from this site. I remember meeting up and having crepes with @momimochi. (Buying her crepes, rather.) I remember arguing with Sen about who's the best girl in insert name of any anime here I remember being creeped out by @Ponta on Skype. (wish I don't, though.) And I remember when I found out @Dec was actually a Scottish girl and not an American dude. And yes, I remember that awkward moment when @Lycan found me on IRC.

If you can't find fun in this site, you're not trying hard enough. It's the first time outside of another game that I don't really want to mention because it's a shitty, glorified spreadsheet, that I've felt part of a lively and forgiving community. Fa/tg/guys, /a/nons, and /m/en are douchebags in general because of anonymity. I FELT LUCKY to finally find a place where oldfags aren't the final word, and where newfags can find respect and make friends with out fear. I found The Colorless. I am an idealistic son of a bitch. I still have hope that the community will know where to draw the line. That cheap laughs won't win against meaningful discussion and that the balance between anonymity and identity is kept. The people and functions of this site have always been wondrous to me, and I have hope that we can all move on as a more respectful community.

Just try to pry that hope from my cold, dead hands. I won't let go of it until this site is gone. I won't give up on some thing that I've grown to love so much over this past little while. So those of you who are causing shit or are thinking of causing shit because it's fun, because you're bored, because you want attention. It's not worth it. Your time here is better spent in other ways. Trust me, I would know.

Gar, I just want to say I appreciate all you and the rest of the staff do for this site. Sadly, drama llama happens everywhere. I see a lot of different ways the site could go. Good and bad. I want to stay on this site as long as possible because of the friends I have made and the things that we could do (and the people I still have yet to meet aka travel to their country and have a heart felt reunion/meeting). I've been here eh during the first wave of people I believe? I got the lovely invisible badge of a midfag, aka we need to stop being harsh on some of the new people. Except some of the crazy weeaboos that pop up on here...

As for the site's activity, I have noticed a less amount of activity but I have noticed we have all grown up and have to work more instead of being on the computer. I expect us to be outside interacting with people we don't like face to face more often - but that's what happens spikes of activity and periods of low. Plus, life happens. Shit happens. People will sadly leave for various reasons we can't control (and possibly return). And to be fair, not many sites like this can say they've stayed open for 2 years and have all those members so quickly with competition (kudos guys, seriously. But seriously what happens at those dollar sites now?)

But I do agree with Kosuke and Tokoyami. The site needs more. Chat is fun and sometimes crazy spam time for fun is needed, but before any of that happens, I think we need to have a long talk about stuff. Meta stuff, spam vs having fun, the amount of fun vs serious, user drama, and stuff like that. Or maybe we all just need a chill pill. Or some to be a third party to the drama to sort it out or something. Or at least try to get everyone on one page and work together on something. I plan on bringing up the charity thing again, seeing as I have the urge to decrease world suck lately. Maybe a collective effort will make some people wise up?

As for the drama made by certain people who will not be named need to stop. To be fair, I think we need the whole community to say "STOP". If that doesn't work, well just walk away. Don't comment or fight about it. While yes it will be hard for the staff to refute some stuff, but I think now we're just feeding the troll per say.

Keeping up the good work staff ~

......... And once again, I have somehow managed to dodge the drama.

But yes, this site. Although I don't come on as often anymore, this site still served as a part of my memory for around two years... And some. Good times were had, bad times were also experienced, but looking back and seeing the improvements of the site (some done less than satisfactory, others done quite decently), honestly, we've come a pretty fucking long way. Be proud of that, Gar. Like you said, this is your baby; everyone grows up with mistakes and drama.

Okay, I'm out.

In a way, I can relate to how things have changed. I admit, I haven't been here a great deal of time, but the pattern the site took is extremely familiar. There is a community that I belong to that reached dark times as well, and frankly I believe there are times like this in just about any social site. The community I was in started around 2006 or 2007. I joined the scene around 2008 or 2009 if I remember correctly. Begin story time!

The community was called Phoneburnia. It started out as an HL2:DM (Half Life 2: Deathmatch for people who have no idea what it is,) sandbox server where people could build things using in game props or battle one another in the death match portion of the game map. I don't know the specifics, but the game mode coding was created by the starting community. The sandbox could be abused by normal users in various ways, so moderators were to be the judge of who was innocent and who was committing vandalism with the props. If you were known for being an innocent user, you could apply to become a member on their "Trusted List." Being a member on the trusted list gave you building advantages such as a bigger prop limit and no-clip, as well as the power to save your creations. To apply to be on the trusted list, you had to go to their forum and apply. Administrators, moderators, and other trusted list members would vote on your application, either making you a TL or not. Arguably, the administration in general was full of responsible people you could trust. Sure, there was some hate, but the majority of the community didn't have much a problem with the administration. Besides the application section of the forum, we had general discussions much like the Colorless. We had some really great threads, such as "The Happiness Thread" and the "Rant Thread". If you were happy about really [u]anything[/u], you could post it in the happiness thread, and vice versa with the rant thread. I mention these two threads because they were the really popular ones, and were composed of about 5 different threads (each one was composed of around 100 pages of posts until a new thread was to be made.) We had other threads as well belonging to music, art, and topical discussions. When I joined Phoneburnia, the community was insanely friendly. The administration and the diverse community itself was pretty close. Everyone would load into the sandbox servers and play for hours and hours. It would seriously be the only thing we played all day. It pretty much continued on like that until roughly mid 2011. By that time, the regulars just stopped playing, mostly because we are gamers and move on to other games with time. The forum was starting to take a turn for the worse. Some people just started to hate one another for their own reasons. There were also people who basically dedicated themselves to attempt to start flameing on the forum. People just started to get sick of it and rarely visited the community.

While all this was going on, no one really knew what was going on in our lead administrator's head. His username was Dr. Timothy, and he truly was a mysterious person. He would only really post when it concerned official business with the community. Most of the moderation itself was done by the moderators, but he would occasionally be the one to give out warnings as well. By 2011, when the server was practically empty and the community began to turn sour, I have to assume that he just eventually got sick of it. To add to the fire, the game engine that HL2:DM was based on was constantly updating. With each update, Dr. Tim had to fix the code used on the sandbox server. Since no one really played on the server, he announced that he was doing one final update for the code. After that, another update was released once more and broke the sandbox coding. With that, the server hosting came to an end. All that was left was the forum. During the time after the server went down, people began to rarely post. It had just become sort of dull and there was no connection between the members anymore. Fast forward to early 2012. In January, Dr. Tim announced that paying for the forum was becoming a burden with him, and that he was going to close down the forum in about a month's time. People offered to donate money to him to keep the forum going, but he never disclosed how much he needed. A month later, the forum was still alive. Then a few weeks to another month later, the website just vanished completely. After awhile, I created a free pseudo forum for the remaining people who wanted to stay in touch with the rest of the community, but it's even more inactive as 2011 Phoneburnia was. A lot of people who used to be apart of the forum didn't join the pseudo forum, which leads me to believe that they just didn't like the community it had turned into, and moved on with their lives.

What was the downfall of Phoneburnia? There isn't really a clear answer, and it's really debatable, but I honestly think it's because there was no connection between the members anymore after everyone got tired of the sandbox server. I'm sure there were tons of other factors as well, but to me that was the biggest factor. Right now, we are simply hanging onto the ashes of Phoneburnia with the pseudo forum that I created.

To be completely honest, I have no idea what the old The Colorless was like. However, if you feel like something has gone wrong, you should find it and do as much as you can to resolve the issue. If bashing is the problem, do as much as you can to get rid of it. For some reason, bashing, trolling, and being mean in general has become pretty viral on the internet. They act mean because it pleases them and they think it makes them look "cool." Those kinds of people can be found everywhere, in any community, and you shouldn't let their hate get to you.

Anyways, sorry about these long ass paragraphs that probably make no sense. I thought that I would just tell you about how things went in Phoneburnia so that you could get an idea that this isn't the first time this has ever happened. Let the Phoneburnian demise serve as an example of what could happen. I would hate to see The Colorless community end up in the same boat. The Phoneburnian community was extremely close to my heart, and I'm sure The Colorless community is also precious to you and several others here.

Alright, as one of the users who has in fact been here a long time, but been less active than most, and often dodging the drama, or watching it from the sidelines, I guess I should also give a few words on this for once, at least to address one specific issue mentioned here.

As the very first thing, I would like to thank @Gargron for making this site. It is quite a feat to have done so, in my opinion, and this site has given me quite a lot. So yes, thank you for that.

However, one thing I would like to clearify quite quickly. I know there are some people here who have had negative attitudes towards Gargron in general. That is not the majority of people though, and that is a fact. I myself however, have been negative towards dear ol' daddy of this site. But the reason this happen, was because daddy was acting stupid and childish at the time, something admitted in the OP. So what I want to say here is that, maybe, at least from my point of view, the negative attitude from the majority of users only happened when daddy was acting stupid enough to deserve it.

Also expecting everyone to like you, no matter who you are, especially on the internet, is a very silly thing. Even if you offer people free entertainment, someone will still come around to tell you that you suck. Because that's how some people are.

My advice to you personally Gar, would be to either try to cease your own childish behaviour, or simply stop caring so much about what people tell you, because I know a lot of people here aren't even being serious. (writing that 16000 people are against you, is one example of a childish thing you did, since you hopefully know that it's not true)

As for the popcorn... Please... I like my popcorn Gar. And what do you expect me to do? Tell people to stop? I'm not supporting anyone being negative really. In fact I once asked for one of my best friends on this site to be muted or banned due to heavy spamming, and would have done it myself had I the power to. (and have I mentioned I've once been muted several times with no explanation given? oh no, I didn't bother, cuz it wasn't doing real damage) So before blaming me for eating my popcorn, fix yourself first at least. (or make me a ranger, you decide xD just kidding)

Again, I would like to thank you for making the site, I have enjoyed it a lot, and I still do. I hope this post will at least give some insight (if you will read it at all, ol' daddy @Gargron)

I'd like to give everyone in the thread a heads up that I carefully read through every one of your replies. Thank you for showing appreciation, and thank you separately for the insights and the stories.

For the sake of not ending this thread in a tasteless manner I'm not going to argue with Kirn any further. If that's what he thinks, fine, it's his opinion.

By the way, do you remember location-based groups? When you could enter your city, and all Colorless were shown on a Google map? Heh.

I reserve myself the right to reply again, more detailed, to one or more of the participants of the thread in the future.

@Gargron Yes, that sh*t was cool.

@DarkChaplain And there are only about 7 1/2 members in the UK. At least we could be lonely together...