"Gee, I really wonder what's going to build a stable community..."
I noticed that every single person that has offered an argument for this server has neglected to provide an argument as to how it would not take activity from the current one. Especially Aero's post in which (no offense Aero), it was just "oh it shouldn't affect the server".
Key word being shouldn't. I remember buying lottery tickets every now and then and I keep losing money instead of winning. That kind of thing shouldn't happen, but it did. That kind of made me upset, just saying.
But that's not the point.
Because the current server is not my concern. How about you provide an argument for why it's fair to the battling community to have to go to a server where the battlers are the minority. I think that's much more compelling seeing as the purpose of the server is supposed to serve the S&M community.
Anyway, I don't think it would much. Who of the server regulars actually wants to battle the way we're speaking of? Let's see, D_A and myself, Pokedra, Jake, Aero, Nica...and that's it. I don't really identify with your community at all and I don't know if Pokedra does either, but otherwise it's not like those others are going to just disappear. You're going to lose a few people tops, and it's not like you can't just go onto both servers if you want.
As long as I've been involved in the battling community of PC (which is for quite a while), I've noticed a plethora of issues regarding the structure of this server. You say it'll only have "six users", which I'm not sure is a metaphor to illustrate your point or whether it's a direct contradiction to Jake's point on building an entire battle community from the ground up. Last time I checked, a community was more than just six users (at least the one you and the others are hoping for). Now let me paint why exactly why I'm not totally on board with this.
I was pointing out that we basically have to build it from the ground up since battlers' numbers have dwindled so much. ...Did you actually think my ideal community was six people? ._.
I remember voicing my opposition in the Server Staff Chat. Jake argued over and over that no one would be shoved aside, no one would be isolated, that kind of stuff. But surprise! What do I see?
"It should be linked to in the S&M main forum so that new users and randoms at least know where our battlers are, while the current server can be linked to...somewhere else."
You're essentially kicking out the current server in place of the new one. Pray tell, do you have any answers as to what's going to happen to the current server afterwards, or do you plan to stop caring about it altogether? With all due respect, I find that absolutely ludicrous. Sure, our community isn't the best community out there, our community isn't a total representation of what should be S&M, I totally get that, but where in the honest heck do you guys expect to get your users from if this server is affiliated with PC? Our server? You do realize we have to host commdays and whatnot too, and have to advertise around PC just as much as you guys do, right? That's the kind of thing that would happen if this "new server" was affiliated with PC. If you ever expect to "build" a community, whether competitive or not, you're going to have to get the word out about it, somehow, instead of just sitting there, waiting for it to happen.
The main forum exists. People who show up in
Battle Center because they actually care about
battling will be linked to the
Battle Server. That's how people always used to find out about the server and frequent it. I don't really see the problem there. Anyway, I don't really see the need to advertise around PC much. I don't have any interest in forcing battling on people. If they want to, they can, and if they don't, they shouldn't. While I plan on building the community, the first step is having one at all and currently we do not because the institution is not in place for it to function.
Which....let me go back to the first point I was making. Why is it that I said that? Is it because our current community is unstable? No. Not really. Actually, I find this kind of ridiculous in a more amusing fashion, and I'm going to explain why right now:
I remember back about a few years back, when all of us tried to rely on Vrai to being back activity to CBC/BC/S&M. We were pretty much lost out of all options, and I remember the what, 10 or so "Get to work guys, and lets make S&M what it used to be!" threads that kept being made, all hoping for a community, all hoping for something to be made. We didn't care what kind of community it was, casual or competitive, as long as we had one and (C)BC flourished with activity.
Yeah, casual or competitive...battling. Casually playing competitive battling is a thing. That's what I did for three years. But for either casual or competitive,
battling follows. Really,
competitive battling (even if done casually) follows. That's what this forum is. So yeah, we didn't care, but there was sort of an expectation that people would, uh, battle. Which gets back to what Karpman said. I don't deny that y'all have a nice community but it's not an S&M community as you said yourself. If we just wanted any community we all would have run off to ROM hacking or something.
Well, you guys got what you asked for. It might not be activity on the forum, but it's activity on the server. And now that you guys aren't happy with the current community, you seek to establish another one. May I remind you how long it took to even get something remotely like this community to spring up? I'm pretty damn sure this community didn't grow overnight; some people came because of advertisements, some people came because Commday events, some people because our server had a lax environment like that.
"Activity." People chat. Usually about not a lot. Which is fine, that's a community that has found its own groove. Just don't pretend like it's activity the way we conceived it in S&M. We always used to complain about activity when we had an active chat. This is more nuanced than your descriptions suggests. So may I remind
you that just because a community exists doesn't mean that it's anything like what a
battling forum needs to actually engage in the activity of
battling. I think I'm pretty aware of the hardship seeing as dealing with it was my job for three years. I get that you're playing up the "you got what you asked for and you're still not happy" angle but we
didn't get what we asked for because
the current server is NOT a battling community.
If this was a case of not affiliating it with PC, I couldn't care less about what you guys do with it, but then again, you would be in a hole as far as advertising it. Again, you'd have to get your users somehow, and if it isn't affiliated with PC, then you're quite stuck as far as where to get them from, because advertising it on other servers is pretty much out of the question, god knows how many spammers have tried to do that, already.
I'll discuss this issue later in the post.
I remember when I told Jake that I had a gut feeling something bad was going to happen. And here it is, right in front of my face. I guess I made the right decision in trusting in that gut feeling for the aforementioned reasons, and also this:
"Also, hstaff having "another server watch on their shoulders" would be entirely up to them--every previous iteration of the battle server was entirely ignored by hstaff...even Luke and BeachBoy were rather absent."
What happened back then has very little to do with what happened now. We have a different h-staff, and they seem to care about the ongoings of the server. If they care about the ongoing of the new battle server, then so be it. If you're going to be advertising this new server, they might as well check out what it's about and watch over that too. Just my two cents and observations from what has happened so far.
You keep speaking for hstaff as if you know what they're thinking, lol. What I gather from what RazorLeaf and TB said is that they took interest because the server has become more universal and more a part of PC as a whole, something that definitely doesn't apply to competitive Pokemon. So I don't see it being a problem and I think it's silly to assume so until we actually know that.
"I've been witnessing the disintegration of the battling community I helped to build and maintain for half a decade and I'm going to do what I can to reverse its impending demise"
By causing the demise of this server? You do realize that's an incredibly counterproductive way to go about with things, right? Of course, all of this is assuming you still have plans to affiliate with PC. Since the current server is already affiliated with PC, it'll carry a very messy state of affairs that I'm sure no one would want to get involved with.
You keep saying it would cause a mess. Um, how is battlers being a minority on what is supposedly their own server (no one even acts like this is true anymore it's gotten so bad) NOT a mess? And I would personally love that messy state of affairs as I have no evidence that suggests it would be messy to begin with besides a whopping two servers instead of one...? For two different communities? Isn't that organization, not a mess? Why can't there be two servers affiliated with PC? Is there some rule against this that was written in a tomb somewhere?
And how exactly is this going to create the demise of the current server? You can't just pass that assumption off as if it's true. Look at who frequents your server and tell me who exactly is going to bolt to go play competitively, because most people (including you) seem quite content with not battling at all and us breaking off will just spare you the "lol no one battles" talk, which right now is pretty well deserved.
"I think we should be considering the best interests of the battling community (without throwing the thriving community on the current server under the bus, for sure)"
But that's pretty much...essentially what you're doing by creating a separate server affiliated with PC. Heck, you've even said this nifty paragraph yourself:
"And just for clarification (since this did "come out of" the pg13 thing even if I mostly used it as a pretense to whine about the current state of the server lol) we would indeed be more laid back about all that though I do want to mirror what Wolf said on the server which was basically that Mature Room is the Immature Room. If we're going to have a server that is more substance-driven, some of the more out there stuff I would expect to be supplanted by, well, substance, as sex tends to drive down the quality of the chat. I think I'm still scarred from my last year on PO."
Do you know what else has a mature room? Do you know what else has PG-13 rules? Oh right, the current server does. So you're essentially creating a carbon copy of the server, except you're isolating the casual battlers from the competitive ones. I don't see that as being too fair as we're supposed to be (as Jake has been saying in the chat) flexible community-wise, but each to their own, I suppose, if that's something you're really going for.
No,
we're isolating the non-battlers from the battlers. Playing randbats or battling once a month isn't casual battling, it's just not battling, for all intents and purposes. So it's not really a carbon copy at all since the battling community at PC has always been culturally different than the rest of the forum and saying that it would be a copy because the current server has a mature room is laughable. The fact that there has to be a mature room at all is the kind of thing the illuminates the differences I speak of...seeing as we
wouldn't have pg13 rules except disallowing things like the hentai channel which is more like rated x rules lol.
Ultimately, my opinion has come to this: If you guys decide for this server not to affiliate with PC, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. However, since apparently it's otherwise, it's causing a whole mess of issues that honestly shouldn't happen in the first place. You say yourself that it's not meant to throw the current server under the bus, but when you're tossing it aside just to say "well.. it can go..somewhere" it really implies otherwise.
Now, are we an excellent representation of what S&M should be? Not really, and I'll fully agree with you on that on every scale. However, we are a community, and I don't think anything should happen to at least tear that apart, which is what creating a new battle server would do.
If the server being advertised elsewhere is throwing it under the bus then I need to revise my idiomatic dictionary. Also, I'm just going to point out that this server has effectively thrown the battling community under the bus and no one has really cared. I have no intention of destroying your community in return--hypocrisy aint cool yo. But um, this server was created to cater to the battling community. So it's screwing the battling community. And your response is "but it's a community!" Yeah, but it's a community operating under a false pretense...except now it only barely pretends so we might as well just make it official, right?
Also, I'll answer to the bolding part when you explain why that's actually the case because I honestly have no idea.
In case that wasn't clear, I'll just sum it up here:
- The new battle server is created. You and whoever else regulars that chat is going to frequent it, and I assume is going to immediately start building it from the ground up.
- In the process of building it from the ground up, as I mentioned, you're going to have to start somewhere. This means getting the word out on PC (since the server would be supported by PC). Now, with the current server already advertising, it would make for a very confused mess because the users won't know exactly which chat to frequent.
- This also goes upon my previous post of Steve disagreeing with allowing the current server to replace the IRC. Three chats is honestly way too much, you're going to have to get rid of one because these three chats all serve the same purpose, except two of them are for battling, and one of them is "more serious" about it. That's really all the differences that I can see.
- With that being said, it'll just have to be decided whether to keep the current server to demolish in favor of the new one. Since all I see changing is you becoming auth and the server being more "serious" and kicking out causal batters (which I oppose), I really do not think it's worth it.
- If you're really that determined to bring about such interest within competitive, then I just highly suggest you do it with the current server. I don't blame you if you just lost all hope or whatever, heck I don't battle myself. But I would if I had motivation, I would if there was something to make me battle again, but I also want a COMMUNITY for casual chat. I think it's going to get stale if all the topic is going to be about is "oh x pokemon is x weak" all the time. I like to mix it up between competitive talk and casual talk. Though that's just me, personally.
I really hope you'll see where I'm coming from when I bring all of these issues up. Of course, this is all
assuming it'll be in direct affiliation with PC as you've stated.
@second bullet: Advertise one as a chatroom and one as a server for casual and competitive players of competitive Pokemon. Even though I don't see the point in advertising a battle server across PC when everyone knows S&M exists...people who are interested would have joined by now, don't you think? (And for all the new users that have come to the current server, it's funny how noncommittal everything is about battling...even though it's supposedly a battling server...)
@third bullet: Please stop pretending like the current server is for battling. That ship has sailed.
@fourth: Why can't they just coexist, again?
@fifth: Do we have to try the same strategy that hasn't ever worked? "I'm not motivated." Maybe that means you're just not that interested then? Like, that's fine, you don't have to like battling lol, but pretending like the demotivated will suddenly reverse themselves...yeah, I'm not really into that. Basically what Jake said earlier. At this point, it's a glorified social IRC, which again is fine, but the actual battlers shouldn't have the burden of existing within it as a freaking minority in "their own" (lol) community. The fact that no one even pretends anymore that this is an S&M community is probably a sign that the actual S&M community have its own community gathering space.
Just one last thought...
It seems like this whole mini discussion is dominated by "well what about the current server!" Okay, but what about the battlers? You know, the people this forum caters to? This arrangement really isn't doing the battling community any favors no matter how you slice it and ultimately it is the
responsibility of the
Battle Server to server
battlers first and foremost and while I think that can happen while maintaining the current server community, my priority is the
battlers who are being forgotten, who have to go to Smogon to find a match, who can't battle in their own community because it doesn't exist. That's my priority.