STARSCREAM'S PROFILE

I was digging through my locker tonight and found this archaic image.



Not sure if it was ever public previously, but thought I would share.

I am pleased to announce the addition of two members to the ranks of staff here at rpgmaker.net. Deckiller and Shinan have both been promoted from the userbase, and their primary focus will be on forum moderation for the near-term. In addition to being a regular RPG Maker busy-body, Deckiller has relevant experience as an administrator at Wikipedia (citation needed); Shinan is a long-term member who has submitted a lot of original content. Also, he's our token European.

The addition of two active moderators should allow for quicker response times to forum issues, allow for consistency, and ensure fairness in all situations. We are currently developing a user code of conduct to support this.

In addition, we have some subtractions! Karsuman has officially resigned from his administrator position, though he will remain a part of the rpgmaker.net family as our IRC founder. Don't let him off so easy; feel free to drop by #rpgmaker.net and give him a hard time. S. F. LaValle will also be stepping down as a global moderator, though he will stay on as a contributor.

By now, I think that most people have become aware of some of the site happenings last night. For those of you that are not aware, the following is what occurred:

• At approximately 9:00pm CST the featured game on rpgmaker.net was changed to “Sonic and the Chaos Dragons” by a then unknown staff member. It was later discovered that this change was made by Magi, and was meant to serve as his “resignation letter”. He went on to publicly bash rpgmaker.net and its users/games in the public IRC channel. Logs show that the game was featured to mock rpgmaker.net and the quality of the games available/featured on the site.

• When Magi was discovered to be the culprit (confirmed with IP logs before he admitted it in #rpgmaker.net), I immediately removed his moderation/submission queue powers. When it became apparent that Magi’s actions were intended to be a signing-off slap to rpgmaker.net and its users, he was banned. Magi has yet to contact me to appeal the ban.

• At this point, Magi becomes aware of his ban and discusses it with several of his peers . At this point, Strangeluv begins trying to get others to post in favor of Magi. Several warnings were issued, but Strangeluv continued to ask users to post to see how we would react.

• Strangeluv is banned after ignoring final warnings, as was user Abdel McCrack. Six posts total regarding Magi’s ban were deleted after they spill into the “What are you thinking about now?” topic. This decision was made to prevent the thread from being locked, as it had been active for three years. It was a mistake on my part to do so, which I discuss here: Recommendation: Stop Deleting Posts

• Users YDS and Felipe_9595 were the other users who had their posts deleted in that topic. Neither was banned because they have heretofore not caused any trouble at rpgmaker.net. Strangeluv has the honor of holding the longest ban at rpgmaker.net (2007-2010) for cheating and has been warned on several occasions prior. Yes, he made a really cool game (as did Magi) but that does not allow either of them to do whatever they want. No other actions were taken despite numerous users speaking up about the event (in IRC, on the forums, via annoying flashing avatars, etc.).

• Users Strangeluv and Abdel McCrack have both ban evaded at least one to post more posts. They have been using a proxy/TOR to access the site and probably will continue to try in the future. Posts made when ban evading were deleted, but will not be in the future. They will simply be banned again until one of us tires of this game.

• Several users who were friends with Magi, Strangeluv, etc. decided to move on from rpgmaker.net at this point, including one user who had never posted before(!).

That pretty much sums up the activities that occurred last night. However, I know many users consider those involved in this debacle to be friends or believe that the actions I took were too harsh. That is the real reason I am creating this topic: to discuss why I felt the action needed to be taken.

On March 4th, 2011 I resumed control of rpgmaker.net to prevent my good friend WIP from killing the site off completely. There was no single reason why WIP wanted to pull the plug, but the types of drama that was exemplified last night played a major part in this decision. We have several long-term users here who feel as their opinions and creations are more important than others, which is okay – it happens. The problems occur when those users decide not to contribute or be constructive when they interact with others. This is an issue I have taken very seriously since I returned to rpgmaker.net, and it has been the #1 complaint from the new users who we are supposed to be guiding and making feel welcome.

There are many different users who have participated in this nonsense from all different kinds of backgrounds. These actions have previously culminated in warnings to prolific developers like Craze and users who have not contributed anything but derision like Jericho. Magi has not be innocent in this regards, nor have some of his associates. I kept him on as staff when I resumed control of rpgmaker.net due to his long tenure as a staff member. However, he almost immediately quit performing his normal duties of moderating the submission queue – most of this has been handled by Karsuman with kentona and ankylo’s support since March. He has moderated the queue on the rare occasion, but it was most often to deny someone’s submission (which he should do if justified) with condescending remarks. He would read topics in the staff forum, but had only responded in one topic since March. He had been called out several times for his inactivity, but he never responded. He should have already been terminated by any measure but we kept him on to keep the peace.

<@Magi> i often asked
<@Magi> why i am still staffed at rmn
<@Magi> despite doing nothing anymore
<@Magi> and then i realized
<@Magi> it is because 75% of the staff couldn't can me in good faith
<@Magi> because they also do nothing

Magi has also made several demeaning remarks regarding the current site, such as that I only kept it open because it was an important business venture to me ($30/month ad revenue). Look through his post history, and you will see pages of snarky (yet sometimes subtle) jabs at other users and their creations. This kind of attitude has continue to pervade Magi and some others since it was announced that rpgmaker.net would remain open.

<Magi> it isn't so much the site that we criticize
<Magi> as it is the members
<Magi> well, select members
<Magi> such as f-g and lockez
<Ciel> the overarching design and attitude trends in the userbase
<Kef> i only trash rmn because it's outright pathetic to see a 25 year old make a game like tales of zoolander or whatever
<Ciel> we stopped discussing flaws with the actual site about the time it became clear you weren't interested in fixing them
<Ciel> obviously our intention was to be mean and terrible and not to help
<Kef> the constructive criticism stopped when it was clear no one wanted to hear advice

So we’ve continued to play this game with them for months, sending the odd warning whenever they got really out of hand. But that hasn’t stopped them at all. Last night was simply the final straw. Some of their supporters are being disingenuous when protesting Magi’s ban and claiming a lack of transparency. In fact, Strangeluv purposefully asked several members to continue posting about Magi even when we had made it clear that it needed to stop.

<Strangeluv> Please stand up
<Strangeluv> for your fallen shmups
<Strangeluv> Me and Magi
<YDS> idk i am posting
<YDS> all over the place.
<Strangeluv> He cant ban us all... (yes he can)
<Magi> kef can you do something for me...
<Kef> sup
<Magi> i need you
<@Magi> to post something
<Strangeluv> "hey nice admining. What are you afraid of? If you can't see that you're overreacting and making some shitty illogical decisions, then fuck you, ban me.
<Abdel McCrack> he banned by account, I can still view the site on another browser
<Magi> but it will take a couple minutes
<@Magi> for me to make it
<Kef> okay i will
<Magi> you will probably be banned but
<Ciel> lol
<Strangeluv> Something like that
<Magi> it will be worth it
<Kef> only reason i ever visit rmn is to post things that might get me banned anyway
<mellytan> lets push it to the limits yds
<Strangeluv> lol
<YDS> lol
<Kef> please
<Emirpoen> Is it even possible to troll Holbert?
<Strangeluv> YDS please
<Ciel> holbert is part of the infectionfiles accord
<@Magi> no
<Strangeluv> get banned
<Kef> everyone get banne dtonight
<Magi> holb will press ban button
<mellytan> yes
<Magi> and you will be gone
<YDS> ban party!
<Strangeluv> Please speak out Ocean..
<Strangeluv> If YDS or Ocean gets banned
<Strangeluv> Why is mellytan not posting
<Strangeluv> i am disappointed

This continues on and on. It is clear that they understood what actions they were taking and the consequences for continuing to do so. This nonsense has continued through today. The difference is now they are taking a very disingenuous position that they were banned for no good reason and that I am being a despot for taking action against them. The reality is that the members who were banned have no real interest in rpgmaker.net and have been actively working against the site for quite some time. It is unfortunate that have drug others into their endeavors and I am saddened that some pretty cool people have left because of it. I want rpgmaker.net to be a healthy place for discussion and that just can’t happen if we allow people to undermine the site administration or its continually mock our users. Those who can be civil and disagree without being disagreeable are always welcome here as are their games.

In honor of rpgmaker.net’s fourth birthday, and to celebrate our awesome users which have helped keep the sitet going, we are going to have an official site contest on June 3rd, 2011*. The contest will take the form of a 34-hour game making event in which users will have threefour consecutive hours to make a game and submit it to be judged. To make the contest more accessible to everyone the game can be created during any block of threefour hours on June 3rd as long as it gets submitted by midnight. Yes, this means we will be using the honor system – please don’t take the internets too seriously. There will be a theme for the contest that will be revealed at midnight on June 2nd, 2011. Further details regarding how to submit your games and the names of the judges will be solidified during the next two weeks.

All contestants will receive achievements and the winner will receive a monetary prize ($25). Losers will receive a complimentary t-shirt** and the sudden realization that they are forever alone on a Friday night. We may see what else we can scrounge up for participants.

Updates:

- no restrictions on engine or graphics
- the 24 hour period will be for June 3rd central time zone
- the event period has now been switched to 4-hours per kentona's suggestion.
- people shouldn't back out because they can't make an "epic" or "worthwhile" game in the 4-hours. Most attempts are either end up being humorous or have some other gimmick. Develop them further after the deadline if you like.

tl;dr We are having a 34-hour contest on June 3rd with a CASH MONEY prize.

* Yes, we realize rpgmaker.net officially launched on June 2nd, 2007, but we felt that having this on a weekend night may make the contest more accessible.

** Not really.

In case noticed the additional array of staff rainbow colors on display in the forums, we have promoted two separate folks into our official ranks and a third individual has also been reactivated. GreatRedSpirit is being brought on as a technical assistant of sorts to assist ankylo with web design and development. This promotion is especially timely as we are preparing to alter the frontpage to reflect more cool content and less latest submissions. Second, Creation is now the moderator of the Game Development forums. He will help us dish out justice, quell insurrections, and generally promote a positive forum experience. Creation is also working on drafting a user code of conduct. Additionally, S.F. LaValle has also returned to his role of global moderator after a short hiatus.